Martin Cardenas Doubles At Barber Motorsports Park and Wins 2010 AMA Daytona SportBike Championship

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Martin Cardenas on the #36 M4/EMGO/Pirelli/Ohlins-backed Suzuki GSX-R600 is shown during a very damp practice session for the AMA Formula Xtreme Series at Road America in June of 2008. This was the Colombian's first full year working with the M4 Suzuki team and he finished the season ranked 7th in the championship standings. 2009 was the first year for the new AMA Daytona SportBike Championship Series, and Cardenas won more races than eventual champ Danny Eslick, but unfortunately also had more DNF's and crashes.
The 2010 AMA Daytona SportBike Championship started off at Daytona, and for the second year in a row, under the Friday Night Lights. Unfortunately, Martin binned it on the first lap of the 200 mile race and started the season with a goose egg in the point standings on the #36 Monster Energy M4 Suzuki. He went on to do a great job this year in winning nine of 18 races to win the 2010 AMA Daytona SportBike Championship by 8 points over title rival and 2009 AMA Daytona SportBike Champion Danny Eslick. And it was also announced this last week he will be back for more with the M4 team for 2011 and 2012.
Great job Martin and congratulations!
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Martin Cardenas fought it out until the end, not only winning both races in the season finale round of the AMA Daytona SportBike Championship at Barber Motorsports Park, but clinching the 2010 AMA Daytona SportBike Championship in the process. Cardenas won his 8th and 9th races this weekend in the 18 race season, and took his #36 M4 Monster Energy Suzuki GSX-R600 to his first United States-based road racing championship in the process. The Columbian won the 2010 championship over '09 AMA DSB Champ Danny Eslick by 8 points, 405-397. Josh Herrin on the Graves Yamaha ended up third in the championship hunt with 377 points.
It was another exciting year of close racing between Cardenas, Eslick and Herrin, who among them won 17 of the 18 races. Bobby Fong on a Ducati won race one at VIR back in August. The class has seen some great racing since it's inception last year, with multi-brand racing and close finishes in virtually all rounds except for the season opener at Daytona, which for the most part is more of an endurance race compared to the other 17 races on the schedule.

You can check out the full results as well as the official write-up's on the races below.

And please join me in congratulating 2010 AMA Daytona SportBike Champion Martin Cardenas and the M4 Monster Energy Suzuki team for a damn fine year, and a damn fine year of racing at that! Great job guys!
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Motorcycle-USA.com's Matt Davidson has the story of race two this afternoon at Barber Motorsports Park in the AMA Daytona SportBike Championship:

http://www.motorcycle-usa.com/748/8034/Motorcycle-Article/2010-Daytona-SportBike-Barber-Race-2.aspx
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Cycle News.com's Henny Ray Abrams has the story on race one at the beautiful Barber Motorsports Park in Leeds, AL. for the season finale of the AMA Daytona
SportBike Championship fight for 2010. Cardenas came into the final round third in the championship with seven wins in 16 races. Saturday's win helped him to grab the lead in the standings with only Sunday's race until the season end, and also gave him eight wins overall. Read about Saturday's day one action here:

http://www.cyclenews.com/articles/road-racing/2010/09/25/cardenas-wins-title-fight-tightens
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Here are the results of race one in the AMA Daytona SportBike class at Barber from yesterday afternoon thanks to AMA Pro Road Racing:

http://amaproracing.com/rr/events/results.cfm?year=2010&eid=2010011050&discipline=RR&class=DS&type=F&rnum=1&class_sort=all -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
And here are the results of race two in the AMA Daytona SportBike class from this afternoon at Barber from the folks at SuperBikePlanet.com:

http://superbikeplanet.com/2010/Sep/sp2/100926a.htm
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Here are the overall results for the AMA Superbike/AMA Daytona SportBike Championship weekend at Barber Motorsports Park from AMA Pro Road Racing:

http://results.amaproracing.com/pdfresults/rr/2010/10-barber/default.aspx
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Hayes and Cardenas Bag Race 1 Wins at AMA Infineon Raceway

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Martin Cardenas on the #36 M4 Emgo Suzuki GSX-R600 leads eventual winner Ben Bostrom on the #155 Graves Yamaha YZF-R6 in AMA Supersport action at Mid Ohio in July of 2008. Bostrom got around Cardenas and romped to the Supersport final win that day and went on to clinch the 2008 AMA Supersport Championship later in the year. Following close on their heels are Erion Parts Unlimited Racing team mates Josh Hayes on the #4 and Jake Zemke on the #98 Honda CBR600RR's. Zemke went on to win the AMA Formula Xtreme Championship in '08 over team mate Hayes and between them won 8 races and garnered 16 podiums in nine rounds.
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Josh Hayes on the #4 Graves Yamaha YZF-R1 won his first race of the year today in the AMA Superbike West Coast Jam at Infineon Raceway, while Martin Cardenas on the #36 Monster Energy Suzuki GSX-R600 took top honors in the Daytona Sportbike class in race one action today. Hayes amassed over a 5.5 second lead in the AMA Superbike race before cruising to an eventual 3.6 second win over Ben Bostrom on the #155 Clark Motorsports Yamaha R1, with Larry Pegram on the #72 Foremost Insurance Ducati 1198R another 3.5 seconds back. The Daytona Sportbike race went back and forth between Cardenas and '09 AMA Daytona Sportbike Champion Danny Eslick on the #1 Geico RMR Racing GSX-R600 until Martin pulled away to win by just over .8 seconds. Tommy Aquino on the Graves Yamaha YZF-R6 #6 was another tick behind to finish third with the top three covered by less then a second.
Results of both races are below, and you can catch the action on SpeedTV tonight 10 P.M.-Midnight EDT and more to be shown Sunday at 2 P.M. EDT and then again Sunday Midnight-2 A.M. EDT. I've also included AMA links to their results and live timing to follow tomorrow's action as well if you get the chance.
In other news, Kurtis Roberts return to the track didn't go quite as planned as the Ace Racing Yamaha R1 suffered what sounded to be semi-terminal electrical gremlins that kept him and the team off the track all day on Friday. We hope the team can get these problems ironed out before the next round at Road America in early June. Hang in there, Kurtis!
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AMA Superbike race one results from the once-known-as Sears Point Raceway courtesy of the great people at RoadRacingWorld.com:
http://roadracingworld.com/news/article/?article=40464
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AMA Daytona Sportbike race one results are here again thanks to RRW.com:
http://roadracingworld.com/news/article/?article=40465
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AMA Event Info for Infineon Raceway:
http://amaproracing.com/rr/events/event.cfm?eid=2010011020
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AMA Live Timing and Scoring for Infineon:
http://laptraxtg.racersites-cluster.com/LapTraxTG/AMA/livescoring.html?LAPTRAXID=2010011020
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