Infineon - Race 2
PARTS UNLIMITED DUCATI'S HODGSON BATTLES AT INFINEON
RACEWAY
Parts Unlimited Ducati's Neil Hodgson improved to fourth
place in Sunday's AMA Superbike race at Infineon Raceway,
applying pressure on third place in the final laps in the
second contest of the weekend. Teammate Ben Bostrom finished
seventh on his Ducati 999 Superbike in a race meeting with
limited track time due to weather issues.
Hodgson was 9.137 seconds behind the winner at the flag,
less than half of Saturday's gap. In the race, Neil made a
pass of Tommy Hayden on lap 22 to take fourth place. "It
was good to see the leaders," said Hodgson, who qualified
on the front row on Saturday. "We were much more competitive
today. I had a good battle with Tommy Hayden and Aaron Yates
out there. Tommy was braking very late into the corners and
I managed to squeeze underneath him for the pass and went
off to chase Miguel Duhamel. The bike felt good on the light
fuel load at the end of the race. We were able to close some
on Miguel but ran out of laps."
Hodgson maintains fourth place in AMA Superbike points after
extending his perfect finishing record for 2006. "We
have a test scheduled for this week in Utah, so it will be
good to go into it having made some improvements," said
Hodgson.
Bostrom was seventh on the day. "In some ways, this
race was a test for us," said Bostrom. "We have
struggled some this season and needed track time. At the end
of today's race, we were able to do low 1:37s after we improved
the bike from what we learned on Saturday. We were about a
second a lap quicker today, though, which is promising."
The next AMA Superbike race is June 2-4, 2006 at Road America.
Sunday results: 1. Ben Spies, Suzuki 2.
Mat Mladin, Suzuki 3. Miguel Duhamel, Honda 4. Neil Hodgson,
Parts Unlimited Ducati 5. Aaron Yates, Suzuki 6. Tommy Hayden,
Kawasaki 7. Ben Bostrom, Parts Unlimited Ducati 8. Jake Zemke,
Honda 9. Steve Rapp, Suzuki 10. Jake Holden, Suzuki
AMA Superbike points (after seven races):
1. Ben Spies, Suzuki 257 2. Mat Mladin, Suzuki 227 3. Miguel
Duhamel, 198 4. Neil Hodgson, Parts Unlimited Ducati 183 5.
Aaron Yates, Suzuki 179 6. Tommy Hayden, Kawasaki 173 7. Ben
Bostrom, Parts Unlimited Ducati 168 8. Jake Zemke, Honda 156
9. Jason Pridmore, Suzuki 148 10. Larry Pegram, Honda 133
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