Subway SuperBike Doubleheader Recap: AMA Pro National Guard SuperBike
| FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: |
  
 |
 | |||||||||||||||||||
|
DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. (June 6, 2012)
- In the span of seven days and
three AMA Pro National Guard SuperBike contests, double defending champion
Josh Hayes significantly altered the shape of the developing 2012
title fight.
What was once
an evenly matched showdown featuring the Monster Energy Graves Yamaha pilot and
his Yoshimura Suzuki-mounted rival Blake Young has shifted
decidedly in Hayes' favor.
The warning
signs were actually visible a round earlier in Sonoma, Calif. However, despite
his vastly superior pace, Hayes opened the door for Young with a Sunday crash,
and the Suzuki man rushed through it to complete the third straight Hayes/Young
victory split to open the season.
Sonoma was
thought by some to be a special case -- a track where Hayes and his Yamaha
YZF-R1 have repeatedly proven to hold an edge over the rest of the field. Young
fully expected to be back on even ground, if not hold an advantage of his own,
once the tour travelled to Miller Motorsports Park and Road America -- circuits
on which he was victorious last season. It
didn't play out that way. Hayes further solidified the trend and came away with
three unchallenged victories to complete back-to-back perfect points
weekends. Hayes
registered two crushing double-digit margins of victories on Young's home track
this past weekend in the Subway SuperBike Doubleheader and took control of the
championship chase in the process, now boasting a relatively healthy 20-point
lead (257-237).
"I've had a
great race weekend," Hayes remarked." I've got good starts and my bike was just
great from the beginning. We haven't really changed anything chassis-wise since
last weekend at Miller. Things are just clicking and rolling well."
While Hayes
hopes to continue his recent run of form, he admits it won't be easy and expects
Young to come back swinging: "Hopefully I can take this same thing to Barber
when we go there next, and some of the other tighter, more twisty tracks, and
continue to push my limits and figure out how far I can take the bike and keep
this rolling. I don't necessarily think it's going to work out that way. It gets
to be a little bit harder to put much time into it -- the splits are shorter and
things happen faster and it's pretty easy to make mistakes. But I'm
definitely looking forward to it and I'm in a comfortable spot
championship-wise. I can just focus on racing well and keep going and putting
down the laps and making them work to catch up to me."
Josh Hayes #1 leads his team mate Josh Herrin #2 and Blake Young #79 during AMA Superbike action at Road America last weekend. AMA Pro Road Racing photo by Brian J. Nelson.
Hayes wasn't
the only factory Yamaha pilot to take a big step forward in the past two weeks.
His teammate, Josh Herrin, also stepped forward to harass Young
while Hayes made his escape. He actually beat him for second at MMP, and then
pushed him to the finish in Elkhart Lake on Sunday, to close out a
double-third-place weekend.
Home track
hero Young was clearly frustrated by his inability to run with Hayes on the
upgraded R1 and was openly hoping his hard-working crew might somehow find
similar improvements with his GSX-R1000 in the near future. After picking
up a pair of runner-up results, Young said, "I admit I'm a little disappointed.
I'd hoped to win at my home track. But this weekend was definitely a learning
experience, and I know that we have some improvements to make. We have a few
weeks before the next race, so we'll go back and figure out what we need to do
to come out strong for Barber." Young
minimized the damage by edging out Herrin to the checkered flag but acknowledged
Herrin's efforts. "Riding with Josh Herrin was good. It's good to see him get up
there and dice it out with me. He's coming around and riding fairly
well."
Herrin said, "I thought it went great... Blake and I had a pretty good battle; we passed each other back and forth. I tried to get him but I didn't have any real reason to try to stuff it in there in the last corner on the last lap and risk losing the front or something. It was a really good race -- the R1 was going really good today. I don't know how I didn't get the drive on him to start/finish." However, while thrilled to be taking the fight to 13-time race winner Young, Herrin quickly recognized that his teammate is still some distance out in front. He explained "Right now, Josh (Hayes) is riding in a class by himself, so I'm happy to be racing for second in my rookie SuperBike season. Not that I wouldn't like to win, of course!"
While Herrin
has stepped forward to challenge for second on more than one occasion, his
early-season sparring partner, National Guard Jordan Suzuki's Roger
Hayden, only saw his recent woes intensify. Following his
three-crash weekend in Utah, Hayden struggled with electronics issues and jumped
the start in Sunday's race. The end result was uncharacteristic 13th- and
17th-place finishes. His teammate,
Jordan Suzuki's Ben Bostrom, ran well for the team, however.
The former premier class champion posted a pair of fourth-place finishes, and
pressured Young and Herrin during the opening stages of Sunday's
race. "I
just can't thank the Michael Jordan Motorsports crew enough for helping me
continue to chip away at the leaders," said Bostrom. "They made my job awesome
at Road America. Racing the Jordan Suzuki GSX-R1000 this weekend was the most
fun I've had on a bike in years."
Geoff
May and Danny Eslick performed above expectations at
Road America. Despite its status as the home circuit for the Wisconsin-based
Erik Buell Racing outfit, the multiple long straights were thought to put a
damper on the EBR 1190RS twins that rail around the corners but are overmatched
in terms of sheer horsepower compared with the big fours. Team
Amsoil/Hero EBR's May completed a relatively successful weekend despite the
disadvantage with eighth and sixth place results, while Team Hero EBR's Eslick
bounced back from a smoking machine-related black flag on Saturday to finish in
the top five on Sunday. The EBRs
worked in conjunction during the race, drafting down the straights and
leapfrogging one another into the corners.
Foremost
Insurance Pegram Racing's Larry Pegram collected Saturday's
fifth aboard the improving BMW S1000RR but was hindered by transmission issues
on Sunday and could only manage a tenth. Local hero
Jason Farrell shocked with a sixth-place effort on his Farrell
Performance/Southeast Sales Kawasaki ZX-10R in Saturday's contest, taking full
advantage of his local track knowledge following afternoon showers left some in
the field tentative.
Young's
Yoshimura teammate, Chris Clark notched up a pair of sevenths. "Right before
the first race, we caught the tail end of a big storm," said Clark. "But by the
time the race started, it was drying. Unfortunately, I got behind a rider whose
bike was spitting oil. Once he was off the track, I put my head down on the
Yoshimura Suzuki GSX-R1000 and gained time. By the white flag, it was raining
again and the race was red flagged, but I kept pushing and cut the gap even
more. Sunday's race was a hard-fought battle for fifth. Unfortunately, I made a
mistake and wound up seventh. But I'm happy with the bike and my lap times show
that. Now, I'm looking forward to Barber and moving
forward."
As
with the EBRs, the KTM RC8Rs shine in the corners but can't compete down the
straights. That made life somewhat difficult for the Wisconsin-based KTM/HMC
Racing squad at Road America. However, they
were back to full strength after Stefan Nebel missed the
previous round due to visa-related issues. Nebel and teammate, Chris
Fillmore, raced together around the 4.05-mile circuit with Fillmore
twice finishing in the top ten (two ninths) and German ace Nebel collecting a
tenth and an eleventh, despite both orange machines suffering from clutch issues
on Sunday. "It was fun
to ride with my teammate (Saturday)," remarked Fillmore. "We were able to push
each other to the finish and we were both happy we were able to put our KTM/HMC
machines in the top ten."
"I am bummed about falling outside of the top ten," remarked Nebel following Sunday's contest. "I am still happy that Chris (Fillmore) and I were able to finish inside the top ten on Saturday but it would have been nice to duplicate that today. I am very happy to see the progress our team is making in its first year and it is wonderful to hear all the positive feedback from the fans that attend each race. We feel that we have a lot of support from the AMA Pro SuperBike fans and it is greatly appreciated."
Australian
David Anthony claimed a top ten of his own, putting the
Kneedraggers.com/Motul/Fly Suzuki GSX-R1000 eighth on
Sunday.
In
addition to his growing points lead, Hayes now boasts six victories on the
season -- twice as many as he scored in all of 2011 despite being less than
halfway through the '12 campaign. One more and he will equal his best
single-season campaign in terms of wins ('09 and '10).
However, Barber Motorsports Park is next up, a track at which Hayes has never won a National Guard SuperBike race and the venue of one of his two non-podiums last season. Young, meanwhile, clawed back from a difficult lead up to the race to finish on the podium twice, including an improbable Sunday victory taken over Hayes.
Next
Event
AMA Pro Road Racing
heads to Birmingham, Ala. for the Triumph Superbike Classic at the
highly-acclaimed Barber Motorsports Park June 22-24. Tickets can be purchased at
barbermotorsports.com
|
 
 
| ||||||||||||||||||
|
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
|
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment
Keep it nice, but keep them coming!
---Please note---You can leave comments anonymously, but you can also leave them while logged into Google, Yahoo and other platforms.
We'd love to hear from you!
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.