Parts Unlimited Ducati's Neil Hodgson improved to fourth place in Sunday's AMA Superbike race at Infineon Raceway, applying pressure on third place in the final laps in the second contest of the weekend. Teammate Ben Bostrom finished seventh on his Ducati 999 Superbike in a race meeting with limited track time due to weather issues.
Hodgson was 9.137 seconds behind the winner at the flag, less than half of Saturday's gap. In the race, Neil made a pass of Tommy Hayden on lap 22 to take fourth place. "It was good to see the leaders," said Hodgson, who qualified on the front row on Saturday. "We were much more competitive today. I had a good battle with Tommy Hayden and Aaron Yates out there. Tommy was braking very late into the corners and I managed to squeeze underneath him for the pass and went off to chase Miguel Duhamel. The bike felt good on the light fuel load at the end of the race. We were able to close some on Miguel but ran out of laps."
Hodgson maintains fourth place in AMA Superbike points after extending his perfect finishing record for 2006. "We have a test scheduled for this week in Utah, so it will be good to go into it having made some improvements," said Hodgson.
Bostrom was seventh on the day. "In some ways, this race was a test for us," said Bostrom. "We have struggled some this season and needed track time. At the end of today's race, we were able to do low 1:37s after we improved the bike from what we learned on Saturday. We were about a second a lap quicker today, though, which is promising."
The next AMA Superbike race is June 2-4, 2006 at Road America.
Sunday results: 1. Ben Spies, Suzuki
2. Mat Mladin, Suzuki
3. Miguel Duhamel, Honda
4. Neil Hodgson, Parts Unlimited Ducati
5. Aaron Yates, Suzuki
6. Tommy Hayden, Kawasaki
7. Ben Bostrom, Parts Unlimited Ducati
8. Jake Zemke, Honda
9. Steve Rapp, Suzuki
10. Jake Holden, Suzuki
MA Superbike points (after seven races):1. Ben Spies, Suzuki 257
2. Mat Mladin, Suzuki 227
3. Miguel Duhamel, 198
4. Neil Hodgson, Parts Unlimited Ducati 183
5. Aaron Yates, Suzuki 179
6. Tommy Hayden, Kawasaki 173
7. Ben Bostrom, Parts Unlimited Ducati 168
8. Jake Zemke, Honda 156
9. Jason Pridmore, Suzuki 148
10. Larry Pegram, Honda 133
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