Team Yoshimura Suzuki’s Mat Mladin and Ben Spies finished first and second in the Road America AMA Superbike double-header weekend’s Sunday race in Elkhart Lake as team mate Aaron Yates finished in sixth. The victory is Mladin’s 46th AMA Superbike career win and he’s the only rider to win six AMA Superbike races at Road America and both he and Spies have dominated all nine races on their GSX-R1000s this year.
Said Mladin: “Nine wins for the Yoshimura GSX-R1000? What can I say! I’ve got to say thanks to my crew for working so hard. They put in the new front end and we’ve got it to where I feel comfortable with it. Basically, we did what we had to do today and now I’m looking forward to the next round at Miller.”
In Sunday’s 10-lap race, Mladin was on pole position but got a horrible start: He’d begun working his way through the field when a red flag was thrown. With the restart, the defending AMA Superbike Champion got off the line a little better but still had to chase down his team mate Spies, who was in the lead. Mladin caught Spies with several laps remaining and held on to take the win.
“I feel that Ben has been a bit stronger than me in some areas of the race track and today I feel that I turned that around,” said Mladin. “In racing, and in life, you have to adapt and turn yourself around. I’m looking forward to the challenge of the rest of the year.”
In both the first and the second starts of the race, Spies got out in front and led right from the start.
“We got out-rode today,” said Spies, who still maintains the AMA Superbike points lead. “We’ve got to come back stronger and I’ve got to train harder. I’m happy with the 20-point lead because the championship is what’s most important. And I’ve got to thank my guys for staying at the track late last night to give me a good bike to ride. Obviously, I’m a little disappointed but you get beat sometimes.”
Yates had been struggling over the weekend. He got a decent start but had a rough time getting ahead and ended up with sixth place. “We went faster today than we did yesterday on the Superbike,” said Yates. “So we’ve made a little bit of progress there. We’re going to Mid-Ohio to test and hopefully we can take a few more steps forward and get the bike working for me like I need it to win races.”
AMA Superbike Top 10 Finishers:1 Mat Mladin (Yoshimura Suzuki)
2 Ben Spies (Yoshimura Suzuki)
3 Jake Zemke (Honda)
4 Neil Hodgson (Ducati)
5 Miguel Duhamel (Honda)
6 Aaron Yates (Yoshimura Suzuki)
7 Ben Bostrom (Ducati)
8 Tommy Hayden (Kawasaki)
9 Jason Pridmore (Jordan Suzuki)
10 Jake Holden (Jordan Suzuki)
Championship Points (after 9 races): 1 Spies 322,
2 Mladin 301,
3 Duhamel 251,
4 Hodgson 236,
5 Yates 229,
6 Hayden 220,
7 Bostrom 215,
8 Zemke 214,
9 Pridmore 192,
10 Pegram 170.
Related Linkswww.suzuki-racing.com
Related News
