Tommy Hayden Leads 18 Laps to Win AMA Superbike R2 at Mid Ohio

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Tommy Hayden has come a very long way since he first started riding in the AMA Superbike class for Rob Muzzy's Kawasaki team back in '97, where he won '97 AMA Superbike Rookie of the Year Honors. After leaving Muzzy's team at the end of the '98 season as shown in qualifying at Mid Ohio above, he rode for the Yamaha Factory team, back to Kawasaki's Factory in-house effort, and then landing with the powerhouse Yoshimura Rockstar Makita Suzuki team for the '07 season where he has steadily improved since that time. Tommy Gun took the '04 and '05 AMA 600 Supersport Championships and sat out the Superbike class for several years while riding Supersport and Superstock machinery. He returned to the Superbike class with Yoshimura in 2007 and this year won his first premier class event earlier in the season. He now has three premier class wins to his credit after all these years. The hard work HAS paid off for the eldest of the Hayden clan!
Today's win at Mid Ohio moves him to within 4 points of the championship hunt behind series leader Josh Hayes, whom Hayden beat today by .194 seconds, for his third win and ninth podium on the season. The series moves on to Laguna Seca next weekend paired up with the Red Bull MotoGP American round in Monterey, CA.
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Yoshimura Rockstar Makita Suzuki-mounted Tommy Hayden emerged victorious today over series rival Josh Hayes in the second race of the Honda Super Cycle Weekend presented by Dunlop Tires at Mid Ohio. Leading 18 of 21 laps at the stripe on his GSX-R1000, Hayden held off series points leader Josh Hayes on the #4 Graves Motorsports Yamaha YZF-R1 by just .194 seconds at the stripe. Local and hometown hero Larry Pegram on the #72 Pegram Racing Foremost Insurance Ducati 1098R rounded out the podium 2.97 seconds back from Hayden. Ben Bostrom on the #155 Pat Clark Motorsports Yamaha finished fourth and Brett McCormick, the Canadian sensation filling in for the injured Aaron Yates on the #23 Michael Jordan Motorsports Suzuki, had his best finish of the season in fifth.

The series moves to Laguna Seca in Monterey, CA., for next weekend's event paired with the Red Bull MotoGP stars. Track time will be at a premium for everyone next weekend as the MotoGP Circus stars will get star billing on AND off the track. Most practice and qualifying sessions for next weekend have been shortened from the usually little-time of 50 to 40 minutes, so getting dialed in early will be the key to getting through the weekend with little or no errors and remaining in the overall hunt for the championship. Stay tuned!
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Here's the abbreviated version of what happened in the race today from the always excellent on-the-scene SpeedTV.com man Chris Martin:

http://moto-racing.speedtv.com/article/spoiler-warning-ama-sbk-race-2-results-mid-ohio/
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AMA Pro Road Racing official results for Mid Ohio SBK R2 are here:

http://amaproracing.com/rr/events/results.cfm?year=2010&eid=2010011030&discipline=rr&class=SB&type=F&rnum=2
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And in the AMA Daytona Sportbike race today at Mid Ohio, '09 AMA DSB Champion Danny Eslick on the Geico Motorsports/Richie Morris Racing Suzuki GSX-R600 took advantage of crashes by the other title contenders to take the win today over Steve Rapp on the #15 Team Latus Motors Ducati 848 by 4.481 seconds. Yesterday's second place man Bobby Fong (DNA Energy Drink/Crozier Ducati 848) took the last spot on the podium and Tommy Aquino and Martin Cardenas rounded out the top five.

Series point leader Josh Herrin still holds a slim 2 point lead in the AMA DSB Championship over Eslick after crashing out today and remounting to finish 19th in race two. The boys will be back next weekend as well at Laguna Seca for next Sunday's 1:25 P.M. EDT race start.
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Thanks again to Chris Martin at SpeedTV.com for the abbreviated version of the Mid Ohio DSB race two action:

http://moto-racing.speedtv.com/article/spoiler-warning-ama-dsb-results-race-2-mid-ohio1/
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AMA Pro Road Racing Daytona Sportbike official results here:
http://amaproracing.com/rr/events/results.cfm?year=2010&eid=2010011030&discipline=RR&class=DS&type=F&rnum=2&class_sort=all
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