ROAD RACE
AMNMBNA SUPERBIKE
NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP
lin-shod Ducati at the time and the tire
was shot by the end of the race. Still, he
held on to bea t DuHamel to the finish
line. This yea r, there we re no such problem s. And he knew going in tha t he
wasn't going to be denied.
"Everyone was usi ng the same tire,
as fa r as I know," Mladin said o f his
dual-compound Dunlops. "We just had
a good setup this weekend. I was going
to win this race if it killed me . I was
prett y determined to win this one."
Th e win came hot on the heels of
Mladin signing a new co n t ra ct with
Suz uki - a dea l that takes him through
2001 (see "Briefly ..."),
"The bike was great." MIadi n said .
. "I' ve had a little bit of a whinge about
the bike this year - speed wise on a few
of the tracks. But it's just one of those
th in g s th at you ha ve to p ut up wi th.
Anthony Gobert (95) was having a good
ride in his comeback outing from his
threee-race suspension. He ran second
until his Ducat i blew a head gasket. To
make matters worse , 'his teammate Jason
Pridmore (41) crashed when he hit
. Gobert's water.
Sevens are
ood in Ve as
1
•
S
SU
~~~
Y
os him ura Suzuki's Mat Mlad in (right) stormed to his
seve nth pol e position of the season today, with this
o ne coming at Las Vega s Motor Speedway. In addition
to the champ ion s hip po in t that comes with the honor a nd the
$1000 bo nus fro m Interst ate Ba tteries, M ladin's lap of 1:36.398
was a new motorcycle lap record at th e 3-ye.1r-old ve nu e.
"We put a qua lifying tir e on and tha t's wha t mad e the d ifference: ' Mla din said. "O n that la p, [ actua lly mad e a reall y
big mistak e. I actually ra n o n the grass o n that last qualifyin g
lap, so [ was surp rised I even go t it. I had it ou t o n the grass, all
cross >d up, so [ was lucky to ge t it. Everything 's rea lly good.
....
On race tires, we' re hosin ' - we can do se vens all day long on
race tires , and by the look s of it, nobody else can. So, ho pefu lly,
I'll be ab le to win one."
Last year Mlad in en cou nt ered tire problems in the Superbi ke
a tiona l, He d idn't expec t to this yea r,
"I think it 's go in g to ge t a li tt le bit grea ~ maybe o n o ne
side," Mlad in sa id. "It' s no t go ing to be the sa me probl em that [
had last year, with bi ts of ru bb er going everyw here."
Continuing to impress in his gues t rides on the Vance &
Hines Duca ti is Jaso n Prid mo re. The Ca liforn ian ended u p second o n the grid with a 1:36,4% on the former Anthon y Gobert
backup bike . He was hel ped out by a red tlag that int errup ted
the session whe n ve tera n racer Ricky O rlando cras he d hard
ex iting th e final co rner , The sto p page of the fin..1 sessio n
allowed Prid mo re's team the opportuni ty to do so me needed
wor k on his rear suspension.
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"The bike wo rked g reat, and I ca n' t say eno ugh abo u t the
crew I've go t down there," Pridm ore said. "They've jus t don e a
superb job in ge tting me up to speed all wee ke nd . We' ve tried
some different things and we have a real good race setup for the
weekend . If we can keep Mat (Mladin) in sight, we may be able
to do something at the end. The red flag to ta lly hel pe d me,
beca use we had mad e a shock change and they had to take my
shock off and go do something to it. Wit ho ut the red flag. I rea lly don 't know if [ could have gotten a time. They brought it
back and something was wrong with it, so they had to take it
back again. It takes the m about 10 mi n utes to do w ha teve r it is
they do w ith it, and at tha t point there was abou t 16 minutes left
- so w ithout the red flag, [ don't think I would ha ve been up
there that close . It definitelv saved me ."
Unlike in the previous two T
with me , too . I'm just doing my thing - riding the bike
and having fun . Hopefully, I can put it o n the box tomorrow
and start strong next year w ith Yoshimura . It's nice to be going
somewhere and fina lly having a superbike ride :'
Behind Pridmore came American Honda 's Eric Bostrom; the
youngster continuing to show that mastering the supcrbikc
class is coming relatively easy. As always, he was modest abou t
his accomplishments.
"I W.1S a little puzzled," Bostrom said . "It was good, but it
wasn't exactlv where I wanted it to be, of COUT5e, because I wan t
to be on pole. The bike was really good; it was just a ma tter of
me not doing the job. Here again, [ still have a lot to learn in the
w hole Superbike class and wi th q ualifying tires . Each time I get
a little bet ter, but it's a matter of not doi ng everything rig ht, and
you only get two laps to do it right. I didn't do all right. Just little th ings tha t take little tenths off your lap tim e. It's just a ma tter of me no t quite being up to speed with those guys."
Filling the front row was Doug Chandler. The defending
Superbike Nationa l Cha mpion had fired the first shot in his ba ttle for the title with Ben Bostrom, who ende-d up sixth fas test on
th e factory Honda , Still, Chandler wasn't counting his ch ickens.
'T omo rr ow is going to be the one that is going to count,"
Cha nd ler sa id. "You' d like to alw ays be qui ck er than the other
gu y, just to feel a little bit be tte r and ta ke so me of the pr essure
off. But the pressu re is going to D th ere regard less, We'v e jus t
e
got to go out the re a nd hopefull y hav e a good setu p and have
a good race tomorrow."
He was a lso tryi ng to ge t ove r a cold tha t was leavin g him
felling a bit dra ined. He a lso had a rou gh tim e of it just tryin g
to get to Las Vegas,
"I'm ge tting better: ' Chandler said. "I think I go t a cold
from one of the girls (his da ughters) . I think it's be hind me
now, but I'm still kind of pl ugged u p . [ op ted not to com e
her e fo r th e p ractice to give myse lf ano ther da y of rest. [
thought that we 'd jus t fly in in the a fternoon, and they se t it
up wi th the sa m e fligh t as the da y before. I sho wed u p in
Monterey and all the flights to San Fran cisco were delayed
and even tua lly they got canceled. I was s tu ck in Monterey
wi th no W~1Y to ge t here , so we ended up havin g to charte r a
p la ne a nd cam e u p Friday morning. It was n' t too bad - [
think it was 51400. [ went with the econo one - just a twinengine Ces sna."
Natura lly, all during qua lifying, Chandler was keepin g
track of where Ben Bostrom was .
"I kind a thought he went bett er than he actually d id: '
Ch an d ler said. "l was n't s ure if we were in fro nt of him or
not. It's always a co nce rn, and yo u try to pay attention to
wha t everybody else is d oing. But yo u can't let it di stra ct
you too mu ch . It ge ts tou g h as the days wind dow n. We'll
d o w ha t we ca n do , an d hopefu lly tha t would be to bea t
Ben . He's the guy we 've go t to thi nk abou t. Hopefully,
we'll have a good-eno ug h bike for him tomo rrow. It' s a
good feeling, not having anybody in front of you (on the
g r id), but we s ti ll ha ve to co me off th e line good as
well."
Lead ing the second ro w wa s Gobert. H is time of
1:37.170 was im pressive co nsi dering tha t he'd missed
Thursday's and Friday's practices an d only had Saturday to learn the race track. He'd als o been out of action
for 3 1/2 months, thanks to his sus pe ns ion for failing a
d rug test.
'" was big-time rusty," Gobert said. "I've been off
since June, however lo ng tha t is. A fter missing Friday ...
I heard that th ese guys hav e bee n testin g the re pri or to th is
weekend as we ll. I've been rid ing a lot of m otocross, so even
when I put a roa d-bike helm et on , it was like, 'Whoa, this is
strange: When I was out there, 1 kept hugging the corners really
tig ht, like hugg ing the insi de ru t, so it took me a w hile to realize
how m uch road [ had and to let it d rift out there. [ just thoug ht
that if I kept my head do wn, it wou ld all come bac k to me. Each
lap 1did, 1 felt better, Eric Bostrom came past and (Mat) Mladin
and I though t, 'Sh it, I've got quite a bit to go: In qualifyi ng ,
af ter having a w hile to thin ka bout it and everything, [ went
bac k out there and nea rly felt back to norm al. I thoug ht, 'This is
good, and maybe I have a cha nce' to win.' After the first practice,
I thought, 'Shit, maybe I shouldn't ride, beca use I'~ just going
to loo k bad: When I went out there in qu alifying, I felt good
an d I know I cou ld have pu t it on th e front row, But on my
quick la p, a slow g uy go t in my way and I ra n off the track.
Because the bike's bee n sitting in the truck, the fluid's been a bit
old and the front Drakes were fading on me . I was going into
turn one with no front brake and just using the gears. I still put
it in fifth, so I knew [ could run at the front in the race:'
Ben Bostrom, Vance & Hines' Thomas Stevens and Yoshim ura Suz u ki's Steve C revier filled the second row of the grid. In
all, 44 riders qua lified for the , lational, th ough only 35 would
start.
