GEICO Motorcycle AMA Pro Road Racing Recap: Hayes Scores Third Consecutive AMA Pro National Guard SuperBike Championship at Triumph Big Kahuna Miami at Homestead-Miami Speedway
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DAYTONA
BEACH, Fla. (September 27, 2012) - The GEICO
Motorcycle AMA Pro Road Racing series' return to Homestead-Miami Speedway for
the Triumph Big Kahuna Miami presented by Dunlop Tire and LeoVince proved to be
a genuinely historic affair. While Mother Nature had her say, in the end the
story was the continued bar-raising brilliance of Josh Hayes and the
breakthrough performance of Roger Hayden. The
Monster Energy Graves Yamaha superstar came into Miami a two-time AMA Pro
National Guard SuperBike champion and left a three-time king, joining the
exclusive ranks of three-time champions, which also includes Red Pridmore, Fred
Merkel, Doug Chanlder, and Ben Spies. Now only seven-time champion Mat Mladin
boasts more titles. Hayes'
recoronation came a day later than expected. In fact, Saturday was perhaps his
roughest day of an otherwise unprecedented campaign. Variable
weather conditions prevented the Mississippian from putting in his best effort
in qualifying, snapping his year-plus pole streak at 11, leaving him tied with
Mladin for the all-time mark. And then he crashed early in the day's race while
chasing after early leader Hayden, clipping a curb while in pursuit. The spill
effectively marked the end of his record-setting ten race win streak, but Hayes
still managed to pick his #1 YZF-R1 up and race his way back up to 12th by the
time he reached the checkered flag. However, the determined effort wasn't quite
enough to clinch with three races still remaining.
Perhaps
it's better that it wasn't. On Sunday, Hayes bounced back to score perhaps the
most dramatic of his 14 victories this season. With most of his competitors
opting to run a rain tire and an intermediate rear in the wet-but-drying
conditions, the champ fit a pair of intermediates to his machine. While
he paid for it in the early stages, dropping more than 15 seconds off the lead,
he later scythed his way up through the field to claim a runaway win in the
end. Besides
upping his single-season wins record, the victory also put him at 31 all-time,
just one removed from legend Miguel DuHamel for second on the career list, and
clinched his third consecutive AMA Pro National Guard SuperBike title.
"It's
been a pretty incredible year." Hayes said. "Especially after last year, the way
things have gone this year... this is the way you'd hope I could push things to.
I don't feel at a loss for motivation or anything; I want to win races.
Championships are pretty cool and sometimes when you get a gap like we have it
feels somewhat anticlimactic, but I still live for the individual victories.
Every single race win feels so good. And if you get those the way that you want
to, the championship kind of takes care of itself. Fortunately, I've been able
to do that and we're going to continue doing it for as long as we can into the
future." While
Hayes has been the man of the year -- and the man of just about every round,
race, day, and session -- Saturday belonged to Hayden. The
National Guard Jordan Suzuki pilot came into Homestead-Miami Speedway with high
hopes after showing impressive form in testing at the circuit and demonstrated
front-running pace at recent events. It
all came together, first with his first-career pole position, and then with a
breakaway win in which the Kentuckian survived an early scrap and powered off
into the distance.
Josh Hayes #1 leads Danny Eslick #69 in route to winning his 14th AMA Superbike Championship race of the season and sewing up his 3rd Championship in the last three seasons. Hayes broke 7-Time AMA Superbike Champion Mat Mladin's season-winning record at Homestead-Miama with one round and two races to go in the 2012 season at NOLA on October 5-7. AMA Pro Road Racing photo by Brian J. Nelson.
The
win comes after years of committed effort, battling back from injury,
alternating periods of triumph and disappointments, and determined toil. Once
frustrated to the point of considering retirement, Hayden has blossomed as a
SuperBike racer since teaming up with Michael Jordan Motorsports and promises to
become an even bigger threat going forward. After
securing the hard-earned win, an emotional Hayden said, "It feels really good --
it's been a long time since I've won. So many things are going through my head
right now, I just want to go back to the truck and sit there by myself and let
it all sink in. It's been a lot of work getting back -- a lot of injuries. Lot
of people stuck with me -- my family mainly. My sisters, my brothers were always
trying to help me, my parents were always right there. You have a lot of friends
when you're winning but when you're laid up in the hospital bed with a broken
back, broken pelvis, there's not a lot of people calling you. My family stayed
with me through thick and thin when almost everyone else gave up on me. I guess
I want to dedicate this win to my family for everything that they've done for me
no matter what. I've
got to thank my team, Michael Jordan Motorsports, and the National Guard,
because last year nobody really wanted to give me a chance -- they thought I was
used goods. I think today made it look like they made the right choice. And for
myself, I put a lot of work into it and to finally win...I
put my head down right away and was ready for the fight. These guys came by me
and we had some good passes, and then I just tried to put my head down and get a
gap and maintain it. I thought my lap board was missing laps because I was
thinking, 'I know we did more than just one lap.' It seemed like it took forever
but I got the win and I'm happy."
While
Hayes and Hayden shared the weekend headlines, Jordan Suzuki's Ben Bostrom
quietly notched up the best combined scored over the two days (along with
Hayes's Saturday crash, Hayden could managed just tenth after returning to the
pits for a tire change) with his fifth and third-place rides. That
was good enough to win the Californian the coveted title of 'Big Kahuna' and the
surfboard trophy that comes with it. "I
can't thank everybody enough," said Bostrom. "There's been some sketchy weather
and sketchy racing, and I was just glad to be out there putting on a show for
everyone. My Jordan Suzuki GSX-R1000 has been podium material all year but I
haven't been able to put it together. I haven't had too many opportunities to
shine for my team, but they've stood by me and now I'm looking forward to a few
more opportunities to shine again at the last race weekend." Hayes,
Bostrom, and second-place finisher Steve Rapp on the Attack Performance Kawasaki
ZX-10R again proved the importance of experience with a combined age of 115 on
the podium in Sunday's race.
Rapp
and his Attack Performance crew wisely made the same tire selection as Hayes,
enabling him to charge his way up a runner-up result -- his first SuperBike
podium of the '12 season. "I
came here to race," claimed Rapp. "It was a gamble that the track would
eventually dry out throughout the 23-lap event, fortunately our team picked the
correct tires. We basically passed the entire field, except for Josh Hayes, and
brought the Attack Performance ZX-10R in for our best finish of the season. It
was a pretty exciting race for us, especially under these conditions." Rapp
advanced his position a combined 19 places to earn the weekend's MotoBatt "Hard
Charger" Award.
Team
Hero's Danny Eslick and Yoshimura Suzuki's Blake Young were tied together
throughout the weekend. The former support class teammates went at it in
Saturday's dry-weather duel in one of the most thrilling battles of the
season. The
two passed and repassed one another, utilizing a huge assortment of techniques
and tactics. Eslick finally won out in the end, edging Young for second at the
checkered flag. "There
was one lap where we probably went back and forth five, six, or seven times,"
Eslick said of the dogfight. "It was a good race. It was clean, and it was just
good, hard racing. Me and Blake have raced each other for a lot of years and
raced each other hard. There's no love lost while we were out there; we were
definitely going for it out there. It was pretty awesome." Third-placed
Young said, "I kind of had two races going on. I was racing at the front, and
then Roger decided he wanted it more than me and kind of took off. I thought
that was going to be the end of my day. And then I saw my pitboard about halfway
through said '+1 69' and I thought, 'oh boy, here we go.' Obviously, it was a
pretty good race."
And
then the two both elected to sit out of Sunday's race. Eslick's
teammate, Geoff May, impressed on both days. The Georgian guided his Team
Amsoil/Hero EBR 1190RS right onto the rear wheels of Eslick and Young at the end
of Saturday's contest to finish a close fourth. He backed that up on Sunday by
leading several laps before tire woes dropped him to fifth. The
only other rider to net a top-five result on the weekend was Monster Energy
Graves Yamaha's Josh Herrin, who sliced his way up to fourth on Sunday after
limping to 19th the day before. M4
Suzuki's Chris Ulrich enjoyed his finest weekend of the season. The Californian
notched up a second-row qualifying effort and backed that up with a sixth-place
run on Saturday, matching his career-best in the premier division. He completed
his strong weekend by taking another top ten on Sunday (eighth) despite falling
and remounting in the tricky conditions.
Another
rider who turned heads -- even if the final results weren't all that he might
have hoped for -- was KTM/HMC Racing's Chris Fillmore. Fillmore only managed
14th and 11th place finishes but made a small bit of history himself last
weekend by leading early in Sunday's race on the orange and black RC8, the first
time a KTM has led a lap in AMA Pro National Guard SuperBike history.
"It
felt great to lead that lap," Fillmore said. "Everything was clicking in those
first few laps. Where everyone was cautious, I just pushed forward and was able
to get out front. This
definitely wasn't the finish I had hoped for after running in the lead at the
beginning of the race. I am still very proud that we were able to lead a lap but
I am bummed that we suffered on our tire choice and it cost me a decent finish.
Luckily, we are learning from every race and I know we will come back stronger
at the next one."
Even
though Josh Hayes has already claimed the 2012 AMA Pro National Guard SuperBike
title, don't expect him to take it easy on his competition at the season finale
at NOLA Motorsports Park in New Orleans, LA, Oct 5-7.
Hayes, from nearby Gulfport, MS, will be motivated to
show his home fans what the rest of the country has seen for the last three-plus
years as he continues to rewrite the record books.
AMA
Pro National Guard SuperBike Race Results
Race 1
Results
Race 2
Results
Points and Awards Updates
Point Standings (Top
10)
Sunoco "Go the Distance"
Award Update:
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About GEICO Motorcycle
AMA Pro Road Racing:
GEICO Motorcycle AMA Pro
Road Racing is the premier motorcycle road racing series in North America and is
universally regarded as one of the most competitive road racing organizations in
the world. The 2012 schedule consists of 12 rounds of competition on the
country's finest road courses. The Series is comprised of four production-based
classes: AMA Pro National Guard SuperBike, AMA Pro GoPro Daytona SportBike, AMA
Pro Motorcycle-Superstore.com SuperSport and the AMA Pro Vance & Hines
XR1200 Series. Learn more about GEICO Motorcycle AMA Pro Road Racing at www.amaproracing.com/rr/.
About AMA Pro
Racing:
AMA Pro Racing is the premier
professional motorcycle racing organization in North America, operating a full
schedule of events and championships for a variety of motorcycle disciplines.
Learn more about AMA Pro Racing at www.amaproracing.com.
For additional information
contact:
AMA Pro Racing Communications, (386) 492-1014, communications@amaproracing.com
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