Round 4: Sears Point Raceway
AMA/MBNA SUPERBIKE SERIES
By, Paul Carruthers
Photos by Henny Ray Abrams
SONOMA, CA, APR. 25
won."
Mat Mladin described
his win at Sears Point
Raceway in much the same
manner in which he'djust
won - succinct and precise.
Letting his actions speak far
louder than his words,
Mladin won his first race of
the season on a cool and
cloudy day in Northern California's wine country.,
The Australian came into Sunday's National with a little extra
inspiration and fire after he felt he
was robbed of the pole position a
day earlier (see sidebar). Already
arguably the most motivated rider
in the series, Mladin turned his ire
into a sparkling performance that
no one came close to matching.
Mladin claimed that a good
night's rest had calmed him ~ter
Saturday's outburst, but it didn't
show in his riding.
"I got over it, essentially, but
again 1 was pissed because of what
they did," MIadin said. "I was lucky I
got ·through on the first couple of laps,
because if it was going to be a fight, I
was going to win - whether or not people went down or they crashed. It didn't
matter. 1 was pretty angry about the
whole thing. Essentially, they did the
wrong thing. 1 did a legitimate lap time,
and they took it away from us."
After he took over from early leader
Aaron, Ya tes on the second of 25 la ps,
the Yoshimura Suzuki-mounted MIadin
steadily drew away from the pack. Once
his lead reached the seven-second mark,
Mladin locked in and held it there until
II
.n
>.
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6
I
a last-lap cruise eventually netted him a
4.189-second margin of victory.
Finishing behind Mladin was his former Cagiva 500c Grand Prix teammate,
three-time AMA Superbike Champion
Doug Chandler, leading· a revitalized
Muzzy Kawasaki team to its best finish
of the still-young season.
. Chandler was back on form at Sears
Point, qualifying on the front row and
charging past teamma te Ya tes before
, settling into a solid' second place knowing full well that no one was going
to beat Mladin on this d
