Cycle News - Archive Issues - 2000's

when we got here. I felt I had a really Mat, got out when he was in second good chance. I knew the whole week- to about a second and it stayed there end there were a lot of guys going for a long time. There at the end, the fast, really consistent. Right at the tire, obviously, gets a little bit greasy beginning, I got a good start and Mat and it went down to .6 and I was get- [Mladin] was in second. I was pretty ting pretty nervous, not knowing if I content just to follow him. He was was going to be able to hold on. setting a pace, a good pace, but I felt comfortable there and I was just try- Luckily for me, I did. Traffic I think ing to relax and save my tires. We [Bostrom] and Doug [Chandler] had to help me today. I expected Eric had a pretty good lead on the guys hairpin, and five laps later it was Chandler's turn. "I knew pretty much third lap," Mladin said. "I sort of just hung there for a long time and then I got really screwed over in turn three with the backmarkers and that's when Doug [Chandler] got me. They were going every way. It was similar to what happened with Doug at Mid-Ohio when Miguel [DuHamel] and Kurtis [Roberts] got him. It was exactly the same sort of thing. Then I just lost touch and I wasn't willing to really bag the thing up to really try and keep up. You just really don't know if they are going to come apart or not. I mean we weren't sure about the tires very well. Kurtis was sort of there and I just did enough to pull away from him a bit. It was probably setup, I guess. We all [the Yoshimura Suzuki team] sucked pretty bad. All three of us. I was surprised to see where Aaron [Yates] was. I fully expected Aaron to be there right behind me, trying to be right there, but he was miles back and Jamie [Hacking] was miles back as well. All three of us struggled. Fundamentally, we've all struggled all weekend trying to find something that worked. We didn't find anything that would work." Bostrom had made his move on Mladin when he saw that Hayden had his head down and looked serious about getting away. "I basically took the same route Nick [Hayden] did on him [Mladin]: Bostrom said. "He [Mladin] was setting a pretty good pace in the beginning' then he started backing it off. I was pretty content to follow Mat for a bit, then I saw Nick trying to work a little lead out there. I thought, 'Okay, time to go.' I had to gas it up, use a little tire and get around Mat. That he did, but that was as far as he got. Hayden was out front, but Bostrom kept him honest - constantly riding in his shadow, though never getting close enough to make a challenge. It was a long, suspenseful affair, but one that didn't feature another lead change. It was Hayden's to lose, but he rode with the maturity of a champion and he never faltered, crossing the line with just over a second in hand to record his seventh career AMA Superbike victory, a mark that puts him 13th on the all-time list. Not bad for a guy who made his Pro road-racing debut at this very same race track in 1997. He also became the first rider to ever win from pole position at Pikes Peak. "All weekend, I felt really good from the first session," Hayden said. "Every session our bike was just working really good. It was just one of those weekends when it's good from the first lap. We made some changes and improved it some, but for the most part the bike was really good (Below) HMC Ducati's Steve Rapp (82) had a race-long battle with first Kurtis Roberts, and then Yoshimura Suzuki's Jamie Hacking (92). Rapp pushed past both riders to take fifth place at the finish. be the guy to beat because he was zero and I was able to get around Bostrom (32) had a good race, but was never able to close the gap on Hayden. Teammate Chandler (10) hounded Bostrom until midway through the race but had to settle for third. Kurtis Roberts (behind Chandler) struggled with tire wear and was lucky to escape a couple of big slides. Roberts finished In sixth. both ... I thought Doug was going to behind us, but it got down to plus consistent. I knew with that many 50 The way things had been going for Mat MJadin in qualifying for AMA Superbike Nationals this year, not many would have bet on his streak of pole positions coming to an end any time soon. But that streak did conclude at Pikes Peak Intemational Raceway, with American Honda's Nicky Hayden stealing pole position from the Australian in the waning moments of the final qualifying session. Remarkably, it was Hayden's first-ever AMA Superbike pole position - in spite of the fact that he's won six AMA Superbike Nationals. Hayden not only ended MJadin's streak, he also broke the Yoshimura Suzuki rider's lap record at the tight and twisty Pikes Peak Intemational Raceway. So too did Mladin, and Kawasaki's Eric Bostrom, with the top three all under the lap record on a cool Saturday aftemoon. The weather was much different than what it had been on Friday, with scorching temperatures equating to slower lap times - and no one could match MJadin's record from last year's qualifying. On Saturday, that changed. Cooler temperatures made for a cooler racetrack and, consequently, faster lap times. None were faster than Hayden's 53.776, set with just two minutes to go in the final session. "I know it's just qualifying and all, but I'm actualJy real happy about getting pole because I've never had one," Hayden said. "It's been a long time since I even had one on a 600. I think I may have had one back in 1999 - one pole in 600 or something. Right there toward the end, I went out and did a pretty good lap. I came in and I had an extra qualifier [tire) that I'd been saving up from somewhere this year, somewhere where it rained or something. When I was on top, I thought that maybe I'd save it till Willow and then when [Mladin) went out and went faster, I thought maybe I could go a little faster yet. I went ahead and put it on right there at the end and got out. ActualJy, when I was pulUng out on the track, Aaron [Yates) went by me and I got behind him and just really got a good lap in. I know tomorrow will be a different story. There's a lot of guys going realJy fast and everybody seems to be right there. It's such a long race here, but I feel good for tomorrow and I'm pretty happy about pole. Here it's super important to be on the front row," MJadin ended up second on the grid, thus coming up one short of the alJ-time singleseason qualifying record set by Mike Baldwin in 1983. Still, he had little to grumble about as earning eight pole positions in a row is heady stuff. "Trust me the nine poles is the farthest thing from my mind," MJadin said. "Winning the championship is the thing that's in my mind. Of course we would like to get the pole because it's another point and that's what I've said all year. We've done a good job so far, but Nicky [Hayden) just went a bit quicker today. There's nothing we can do. Everybody went quicker all over. The track temperature here makes a big difference in lap times. Some places it doesn't make such a big difference, but here it does." Mladin's championship aspirations are really under threat from only one man Bostrom - and the Kawasaki rider continued to apply the pressure in Colorado, qualifying right behind the Australian. "I think the weather conditions and everything today were good for getting fast laps and we're definitely happy to be on the front row because it's important on a tight little track like this, especially with everybody's times so close," Bostrom said. "It's realJy important, but of course it 'would have been nice to be on top; it's always nice to be on top. I was just trying to put down the fastest lap I could and as it tums out it wasn't fast enough. We're stilJ having a little bit of a problem in the fork. It's pretty close and it's come a long way from yesterday, but we still haven't got it dialed, so we're hoping to get a little more time in. We're real happy with our times on race rubber and everything 50 I think we're in good shape for tomorrow - but J think it's going to be another bam-bumer." Filling the front row was Bostrom's Kawasaki teammate Doug Chandler, in what was his best qualifying performance of the season. The Californian put it down to a motorcycle he is getting more comfortable with, due mainly to a recent test session at Virginia International Raceway. "We made some pretty good strides at the Virginia test we did," Chandler said. "We had some different things we tried on the bike and made it a lot better for me. I'm a lot more comfortable on the bike and that carried over to here. We came here with a bike from Virginia and it was pretty close. We made some subtle changes, but nothing real big and drastic like before. We were able to get a lot of laps in out there and felt comfortable doing it. We ran through the tires and did a lot of laps on a number of tires and I'm pretty happy with what we did with 'em. Hopefully, the weather wiH hold out and we'll have a good day tomorrow and have some good racing." Erion Racing's Kurtis Roberts led row two, lapping at 54.94, just fractions ahead of HMC Ducati's Steve Rapp, the returning Aaron Yates and his Yoshimura Suzuki teammate Jamie Hacking. "Last year's race I didn't get under a 56 [seconds] and today I did 60 laps on my race tire, all in the 55s," Rapp said. "Not bad. I didn't think the bike could get much better than yesterday but we tried a new shock and made a few adjustments and it feels great. I didn't get on the front row, but I wasn't far off. The middle of the second row is actually a good place to be, 1just have to judge the guys up front, watch where they brake and hopefully get a clear break." cue' _ n _ _ so • SEPTEMBER 5. 2001 7

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