SPIES HEADS SUZUKI ONE-TWO AGAIN
Rockstar Makita Suzuki Factory Racing continues to hold sway
in AMA Superbike racing as defending AMA Superbike Champion
Ben Spies and six-time AMA Superbike Champion Mat Mladin again
finished first and second in the second AMA Superbike race
of the weekend at Infineon Raceway in California on Sunday
afternoon.
Two-time AMA Superbike Champion started from pole position
and led
all 28 laps of the race to take the win. This victory is Spies'
fourth consecutive AMA Superbike win of the season and his
22nd career victory.
Team mate Mladin was right on Spies' tail for the entire
race and brought home second place. With this result, Mladin
maintains his lead in the AMA
Superbike championship points standings.
Rockstar Makita Suzuki team mate Tommy Hayden is recovering
from injuries sustained at a recent round and did not race.
Ben Spies:
"Today's race was a whole lot tougher than yesterday.
Mat had a bit of a go and got the gap down really low. I was
just trying to be consistent and go fast, because I knew he
was coming but I didn't know if he was going to keep on coming.
I was just riding my Rockstar Makita Suzuki GSX-R1000 as fast
as I could, and I got a little break with some lappers with
about 12 laps to go. It was a tough race; we were sliding
around quite a bit. I mean, it was fun but it was definitely
very difficult. This was a good weekend overall -- we did
everything we could do. We just had a maxed-out weekend and
that's what we needed. Now we're going into Utah and we've
had some decent success there. Considering the hole we've
dug for ourselves with the championship, things are going
well, but we've got to keep it up for the next several weekends."
Mat Mladin:
"We had the same results today, but the pace was a bit
quicker. We got a few things sorted on the Rockstar Makita
Suzuki GSX-R1000 and I felt more comfortable on the motorbike.
But I still couldn't get on the back of Ben. We certainly
made some improvements today, which made things better for
me today. And we look forward to getting to the next race
and building up some confidence. I've had five crashes this
year and that's not like me to crash so much at the beginning
of the season, so I want to build some confidence back up.
So we'll move on and try to challenge Ben for some race wins
because he won pretty handily this weekend."
AMA Superbike Top 10 Finishers:
1. Ben Spies (Rockstar Makita Suzuki)
2. Mat Mladin (Rockstar Makita Suzuki)
3. Jamie Hacking (Kawasaki)
4. Aaron Yates (Jordan Suzuki)
5. Neil Hodgson (Honda)
6. Eric Bostrom (Yamaha)
7. Miguel Duhamel (Honda)
8. Geoff May (Jordan Suzuki)
9. Chris Peris (Suzuki)
10. Ryan Elleby (Suzuki)
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