7-Time & Retired AMA Superbike Champion Mat Mladin Talks to Cycle News

Mat Mladin hammers the throttle coming out of turn 8 on his #66 American Suzuki/Yoshimura USA/Dunlop/Showa-sponsored GSX-R750, during qualifying for the AMA/MBNA Superbike Championship Series during the Coca-Cola Super Cycle Classic weekend at Road America in June '99.  In the first season running the fuel-injected Suzukis, Mladin and the Yoshimura team would go on to win their first of seven championships together.

After riding for the Fast By Ferracci Ducati team, Mladin hooked up with the Yoshimura Suzuki team in a match made in heaven, earning the '99-'01, '03-'05 and '09 AMA Superbike Championships.  Mladin, who will turn 40 next month just over 2 1/2 years after hanging up his leathers, is also the all-time winner in the premier road racing class in America with 82 wins.

To a lot of riders and fans, Mladin was the brash and cocky-type in his years of dominating AMA Superbike racing, but he was a very strong advocate in helping to progress safety at the tracks in America when many were sorely in need of improvements.  Standing up for the safety of the riders, Mladin wouldn't back down when it came to the needs of the riders and the lack of safety improvements around the tracks in America.  He helped to escalate many changes and improvements in his years of kicking hind-end in the States.

Having retired at the end of the 2009 season after winning his 7th title in the class, Mladin now runs his businesses in his home country of Australia while also enjoying his love of flying many different types of aircraft. 

Check out below what Mat has been up to since his retirement, thanks to the great folks at Cycle News.com!
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Cycle News' Darryl Flack had a chance to catch up with 7-Time AMA Superbike Champion Mat Mladin recently, and you can check out what 'the man from down under' is doing these days back home in Australia, right here:

http://cyclenews.coverleaf.com/cyclenews/20120223#pg57
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AMA Road Racing: Could Mat Mladin Really Be Thinking of Returning in 2012?
















Mat Mladin powers his #66 Yoshimura American Suzuki GSX-R750 through a turn at Mid Ohio during a qualifying session as part of the Honda Super Cycle Weekend presented by Dunlop Tire round of the AMA Superbike Championship in July of '98.  The all-time winner in championships and wins in the series (7-Time AMA Superbike Champion & 82 series wins) retired after the '09 season after clinching his seventh and final championship, and literally walked away from the series after re-writing the record books for over a decade.  Reportedly he is thinking about returning to U.S. soil in 2012 to again compete in the AMA Superbike Championship.
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With AMA Road Racing and the AMA Superbike Championship slowly but surely trying to rebuild credibility into the series as well as lure the crowds back to the track after the debacle that was in the 2009 season with Roger E behind the charge (or near demise as it were), the series HAS and is seeing a better version of ownership and leadership since the arrival of the DMG folks and the subsequent take over of the AMA Pro Racing rights to the series.  But with the failed economy hitting home about the same time the rug was pulled out from under everyone, it is taking much longer to rebuild the trust in the fans, and taking longer for the one's that are trusting to return due to economic hardships as a result of the fall-out.  But the series is progressing, albeit slowly, just like the economic turnaround, or recovery as it should be.

One thing that definitely couldn't hurt the credibility of the series, however, are reports that retired 7-Time AMA Superbike Champion Mat Mladin is considering a return to the series in 2012, at the ripe young age of 40 years old.  Could this REALLY be a possibility, or is this just another pipe dream of hope? 

Here's the story by Henny Ray Abrams at the new CycleNews.com digital edition on the possibility of 7-Time AMA Superbike Champion Mat Mladin making a comeback in the AMA Superbike Championship in 2012:

http://cyclenews.coverleaf.com/cyclenews/20110419?sub_id=aFXCj9dZpNMZ#pg88
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AMA Road Racing: Looking Back at the Suzuki GSX-R & It's Place in Superbike Racing History

Mat Mladin powers the #66 American Suzuki/Yoshimura USA/MotorRex/Showa-sponsored GSX-R750 out of turn eight during a qualifying session for the AMA Superbike Championship round at Road America as part of the Coca-Cola Super Cycle Classic Weekend in June of '99.  Mladin had just earlier in the season won his first race of the year for the team at Sears Point, and would go on to clinch the first of his seven AMA Superbike Championships ('99-'01, '03-'05, '09) for himself and the Yoshimura Suzuki squad. 
The man who set the all-time win and pole position records in the U.S. premier road racing series, walked away from the sport at the end of the '09 season, again a champion, due to what many consider to be the ongoing internal problems with the new regime at the time with AMA/DMG Road Racing.  Mladin now runs his Mladin Imports business in his home country of Australia, and is one of the country's Suzuki importers, naturally. 
Not only did Mladin bring an extremely high level of competition to the series, but he was also one of the most outspoken advocates for the sport in terms of rider and track safety.  Although he spent time with and won races while with Eraldo Ferracci's Ducati squad in '96-'97, he is obviously best known for wrestling GSX-R750s and GSX-R1000s throughout the majority of his career while riding for the Yoshimura American Suzuki team.
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How can you not think Suzuki GSX-R, in terms of AMA Road Racing, and not immediately think of 7-Time AMA Superbike Champion Mat Mladin?!  I can't, not after all of the records he set and broke throughout his almost decade-and-a-half time in the series.  Well, neither could Suzuki in what is a little timeline video they put together about the evolution of the GSX-R since it's original introduction in 1985 (and imported to the U.S. for the '86 model year.)  Needless to say as far as the racing aspect of the GSX-R is concerned over the years, Mad Mat's name comes up quite a bit. 

Thanks to YouTube.com for this great video from Suzuki:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vLG0tWxLTKU
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The Worst Kept Secret in WSBK to MotoGP is No Longer a Secret....

http://www.superbikeplanet.com/2009/Oct/091001a.htm

http://www.roadracingworld.com/news/article/?article=38283

http://www.motorcyclenews.com/MCN/sport/sportresults/MotoGP/2009/October/oct0109-spies-admits-motogp-switch-was-difficult/


Well, as you have probably heard, or have known the possibilities of through the rumors
around the web, 3-Time AMA Superbike Champ, and current 2nd place man in the
World Superbike Championship, Ben Spies, made the announcement today that he was
moving to MotoGP in 2010 to partner and team with Colin Edwards on the Tech III
Yamaha team. Spies, who had been reported to have all but solidified this deal some
2 or so weeks ago, made the rumor official today.

I want to thank the fine folks at http://www.roadracingworld.com/, http://www.superbikeplanet.com/
and http://www.motorcyclenews.com/ for the above news links and the fine work they do as well.

As you ponder what 2010 will bring with Team Texas in the MotoGP circus, you are viewing
Mr. Spies leading Mr. Mat Mladin at Road America during race 1 of the AMA Superbike Series
in Elkhart Lake, WI., in June 2008. Go get 'em Ben! And good luck to you and Colin both!

The Mat Who Would Be King.....

.....IS King again for the 7th time!

Mat Mladin, who has managed to dazzle, ruffle, and keep our interests alive for the better

part of the last 13 years in the AMA Superbike Series, managed a 9th/2nd place finish over

the weekend at Virginia International Raceway, and took his 7th Superbike title in the

premier class of American roadracing. Not that winning his 7th--and unfortunately what

looks to be his last as he announced his retirement a couple of weeks ago--was going to be a

stretch. Through and including the Laguna Seca round over the 4th of July w/e, Mat had won

a total of 10 races, while managing to build a lead in the series standings that he would not relinquish. The formalities were all but done by race time yesterday, as in the Sunday race he

only needed 2 points to take the title from his team mate, Tommy Hayden, no matter where

Tommy Gun finished.

After having started the year on a tear in not only claiming pole wins, Mat amassed win after

win in what seemed from the start of the season a cakewalk. However, after having to deal with

a new '09 motorcycle several race events into the season, it took some time for Mat to come to

grips with the handling and performance of the new machine. Never failing to take it to the edge,

he showed everyone why he is the all time champion by protecting his point lead while

developing the bike, and coming to grips with the nature of the new beast at hand. Not too

mention the new beasts involved with the Damaged Motorcycle Guys people who have

attempted to re-work the series ala NASCrash and their rule making/changing ways to re-

formulate the series. That's another story for another time. This is about Mat.

For the man who stepped up and has taken the U.S. series by storm since he emerged on

the FBF Ducati in 1997, yesterday was the final crown and the final exclamation point to

a very storied career. Not that a chance of another win or two might not be possible in 2

weeks at the season-ending event in New Jersey, but yesterday was the culmination of all the

dedication, effort, training and focus that Mat Mladin has shown all of us here, let alone the

world, for all of these years, and shown how/why he is now a 7-time champ after having won

his 7th crown in the last 11 seasons. I've said it from the start, the man is a machine, and he has

rolled over all of us in showing what kind of champion and competitor he is. And unfortunately,

after the end of this year, Mat Mladin will go back to being a mere mortal. He will walk away from the sport and series he has decimated virtually since the start, and we will all be

worse off without him as a result. Not seeing Mat Mladin on the grid in 2010 in the AMA
Superbike Series is going to leave a hole the size of Texas in the series and we all will suffer

as a result. However, we can say we have been treated over the last decade plus to one of the

finest performances by one of the premier athletes at his job, and boy, were WE wowwed by it!

For Mat Mladin, we all bow at your feet for what you have done and shown us, and we are all

better for what you have done and shown us over the years. You will be surely missed, and

we will appreciate even more, when you are gone, how much you have truly done for us.

Thanks for the memories, Mat, and congrats on Number 7! We never doubted it would come!

The shots above are all of Mat at Road America in 2004, in various stages of practice, qualifying,

and generally kicking everyone's a.. over the w/e while winning both races that year.

Their may be some people out there that won't miss him when he's gone, but I can tell you I WON'T be one of them.....Thanks again Mat!!

Mat Mladin chases Ben Spies, Road America AMA SBK Race 1 2008