Cycle News - Archive Issues - 2000's

second at t he fi n ish . Chandler was in tow in fifth pla ce, followed by a lonesome Ha c k i n g , a n e q u a lly lon ely R app , Pe g r a m a n d Hayd en , with Meklau topping Smith in their 26 -lap battle for J Oth . " I felt p retty go od and I rode great: DuHamel said . "The deciding factor for me was th at I wasn't ab le to ini ti ate a pass on J am ie Hacking when I wa s rig ht there with th e leaders. I j ust go t bogged there behind him and lost b asically four se conds or five se c onds . W he n I got by Jamie, I wa s ridi ng rea l ly r agg e d , t ry i n g h ard t o gap them back and g et back to th e leading three guys; I cou ld n' t do it . A nd then K urtis (Above) Steve Ra pp (8 2) fi ni shed eighth and seventh over th e two days on his HMC Ducati. (Right) Mike Smith leads Andy Meklau in one of their two battles that went the distance on both days. Meklau got the edge on Smith both time s out to finish 10th, with Smith end ing up 11 tho having di fficulties getting drive out of the corners , but whatever it was , I'm confident we'll solve it befo re tornorrow 's race, and th e result wi ll b e bet ter ." Competition Accessories Ducati's Pegram had also been w ith t he c has ing group , but h e cra shed o ut o n th e th ird la p. " I lost the fron t end o n one of th e seams ," Pegram said . " I was ha v in g difficulty staying with th e pack , and I gu es s I w a s p u sh in g too ha r d and c r ashed. We 'v e got so me t h in gs t o change befo re tomo r ro w ' s race , an d hopefully we'll be more competitive tomorrow ." RACE TWO Chandler loo k ed to be in troub le on the start line as he raised hi s h and with a stalled motor just prio r to the lights turning green. The proceedings were held up for a few seconds as the bike was refired, and normality returned with Bostrom na il in g down h is second success ive holeshot. Mla d in was seco nd, w it h Hac k in g third, Nick y Hayden fou rt h and DuH am el fifth . Hayden didn't waste as much time as on t h e day prior in d isposing of Hacking, and he moved into third on the second lap . On the third lap , Mladin shot past Bostrom in the onetwo transition to ta k e o ver the lead . A lap later , Hayden also passed Bostrom, as the Kawasak i rider was al ready beginning to struggle with his rear tire. By the fifth lap , th ings settled down , w ith Mlad in bare ly l ea din g Ha yd en , B ostrom sta rting t o lo se tou ch and DuHamel and Roberts lo ck ed in what would be a ra ce-long battle . Chandler was eighth , but would fight through to contend with th e Ho nda pairing as the race wore on . Hayden looked determined, and he wasn't letting Mla din go . T h e gap between t h e two p rotagonists would grow a nd sh rink thro ughout the race, t hough Ml ad in ' s lead wou ld never be m o re tha n a second, and it wa s traffic th at d et erm in ed th e b etter lap times be tween th e t wo . It w as a r a c e that went to the end . " A couple of t imes it looked li ke h e was going to get away from me," Ha y den sa id later. " A few lapper s would either h elp m e o r hu rt m e , and one rea ll y helped m e and I was abl e to g et ba ck o n him ." On the 24th of 26 lap s , H a yd en made his first atta ck o f the r ace , a bold move in turn six tha t ga ve h im the lead . With Bostrom a lready o ut of th e runnin g after pitting for a new re ar t ir e, most fi g ured t ha t M l ad in w oul d settle f or secon d at this po in t . M os t would be w rong . Th e Au st ra lian i n stead stu ffe d it un der Hayd en in t urn J J a lap later to re take the lea d. "I wanted to win the race ," Mladin said . " I said it before , Nicky [Hayden] d id a great job . He hounded [mel pretty much all the way . After E r i c went out, I rode a safe race and tried to stay wide wi thout doing anything silly , and that's when he r e a ll y hounded me hard . He got me down the back straight on the brakes . I sort of thought that could happen bec ause I got a really lousy drive, and I think I was so rt of in the middle of that crack and wasn't su re whether to get o n t he gas , and N ic k o bvio usly got a better drive . A lap an d a h alf la te r, I certa in ly wanted to st ill wi n, and I dove underneath him in turn nine, or one of those turns over there. Un fo rt u nately , just a few corners after that, the old girl expired , and I had to cruise around the last lap. I got past the fin ish li ne on the last lap, and it wouldn 't go any further • tha t' s wh y I pulled in to pi t lane . That 's th e way it goes sometimes. I d on 't know [what it was] - something term inal. I'm disappointed to lead the who le ra ce and then g ive it up li k e that, but I' m sm il ing , so ... I can't ta k e an ything awa y from Nicky ; he rode a great race ." With the Suzu k i rapidly dropp ing cylinders, Mladin would nurse the bike home to a second - p lace finis h as Hay den stormed to h is first victory of the season. " After yesterd ay , I th o u g h t we wo ul d have a g ood shot today if I got w ith t ho se guy s," Ha yd en sai d . " I got a lot bett er st art, and th e first few laps I just rod e a lot more aggressive. Those gu ys made a big adjustment last night t o th e f ue l in jection . Earl ie r i n the w ee k , I wa s spinn in g rea ll y bad and they slowed it down on th e bottom so it wouldn ' t h it so hard. Then coming on to the ba ck straightaway and out of so me of these comers , I could n' t get a r u n on an yb od y . Fredd i e Sp enc er ma de a sug ge st ion to u s, a nd those g uys made it accelera te harder , and it d efin itely allowed m e to p ick up sp eed on th e ba c k st rai g ht away, and that's where I wa s a ble to p a ss the guys powering p ast ' em . It just feels really good to be a ble to get th e w in ." [Ro bert s] came by m e, and he was rid ing g o od . I th ought , ' W ell, I'm no t going to d o like y este rd ay.' Especially with Eric [B ostrom] going out be ca use it wa s fo r a podium. We reall y went at it hard , an d our la p times g ot better. W e had a g reat tussle, and it was a lot o f fu n . O n the las t l ap, I t h in k we passed eac h other three ti mes fo r third. He w anted it really bad, and so d id I." Rob ert s ha d a n e njoy a ble da y , pl eas ed to be back in the hunt after a The DuHamel/Roberts brawl w o ul d include t h ree passes o n the final lap, with th e French Canadian ultimat el y topping th e Ca lifornian - b y just .2 of a The riders either lovingly or loathingly refer to qualifying tires as "Os." Perhaps we should all start referring to Mat Mladin as Mr. Q. After all , no one can match the Yoshimura Suzuki rider when it comes to fitting a qualifying ti re at the end of the final session and throwing down a quick lap. For the seventh straight race, Mladin did this to perfection, lapping nearly a second under Ben Bostrom 's two-year-old lap record to eam his seventh successive AMA Superbike pole position • a mark that sets him apart as the only man to ever put together such a streak in AMA Superbike history . "We just put a qualifying tire on - that's all , really." Mla di n said after lapping at 1:26.496. "Up until we'd done those couple of laps, we were on race tires and we know out of a qualifying tire we'll probably get between six tenths and a second a lap sometimes . Today we got about a second a lap, may be ju st a little bit less. I'm pretty happy with it; it was a pretty good lap . I think the first one might have been a bit quick er, but I really stuffed up in a coup le of places, so I had to 90 for a second one and luckily it was quick enough. It was okay ." Mladi n also m ade it known that his absent teammate Aaron Yates (who is out with a broken wrist suffered at Laguna Seca) had played a big part in the improvement Mladin had made to his lap times here at Mid·O hio . "Last year in the race when I was behind Aaron. Aaron is very 900d at this track, it was good for Aaro n to be in front of me last year." M1adin explained. "For while it took a few points away from me going to the championship, I leamed a lot of stuff from him. There were a couple of spots on the track where he was a lot quicker than me . and I really leamed last year what it takes to be fast in those spots. Watch ing the video over and over and over again in the past 12 months to try and pick up a few things, and it seems to be work ing." Second quickest was Mladin 's onl y championship rival, Kawasaki' s Eric Bostrom. Naturally, the Califomian had tried his best to make sure that Mladin didn 't get pole - and the championship point that goes with it - but he couldn 't stop the Mladin freight train . "I really thought if I did a 26.7 or someth ing we'd be in good shape, but I didn't even do a 26 .7." Bostrom said after cutti ng a I :26.902. "I did the tim e on my first lap. The second lap we kind of ran into a lapp er. Then I tried to cool it and get another one, but it wasn't so good. He [M1adin] went good. The tire [qualifying] doesn't make that much difference, but he seems to get the most out of it. I think my bike will be good in the race. I'm pretty confident and I just need to get a good start. That 's key here because it' s very difficult to pass." Third on the grid went to the Honda of Nick y Hayden, the first of the top three to sneak under Ben Bostrom's two -year-old lap record. "I wasn't really sure what the track record was," Hayden said. "l felt pretty good. , felt really good there. I thought 1mig ht have a shot at pole. I did two laps. and neither one of 'em was really stellar, like 1 thought m aybe I could get into the 26s, but.. . no way. Mat IMladin ] put in a few really good laps. I about tucked the front on the thi rd lap with m y qualifier, so after that I j ust sort of chilled out and that was it. The way thi ngs have been going it still feels good to be up here and be in the mix of things. I'm happ y with that and maybe we can at least be in there." Yoshimura Suzuki' s Jamie Hacking would fil l the front row with his best of 1:27.543. He was one of a few who weren't overly impressed with the differences a qualifying tire mak es to your lap tim e. "It was good." Hacking said. "The qualifi er didn 't really do anything for me. My race tire worked just as good as my qualifier. I ended up ju st pushing the front more than anything and j ust screwing up all the corners. It was good for two tenths. Being on the front row with my race ti res, basically , I'm happy with that. It'II be a good race." The second row would consi st of Kawasaki's Doug Chand ler, HMC Ducatl 's Steve Rapp, Competition Acces sori es Ducati' s Larry Pegram and American Honda's Kurtis Roberts, in his retum following his arm- pump surgery six weeks a90. cue ' e n e _ S • AUGUST 1 , 2001 9

• Cover