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nis right leg at Fontana, for much of the race. Chandler moved into third on the 19th lap, with Roberts waving DuHamel past, and into fourth, on the final lap. Blimpie/Yoshimura Suzuki's Jamie Hacking celebrated his 31 st birthday by finishing sixth on a machine he hadn't completely sorted out. His was the best of the Suzuki finishes. Mladin's engine slowed on the 11 th lap, forcing him to the pits, with Aaron Yates out with valve problems on the 13th lap. Austin Bleu/Bayou Ducati's Pascal Picotte had a litany of problems, mostly related to a misfire, all weekend. The bad luck continued in the race with a broken exhaust pipe, followed by a chunked rear tire. The battle of the privateers went to local hero Robert Jensen. The North Dakotan, a Brainerd regular in the Central Roadracing Association series, finished just in front of Cruise America's Jason DiSalvo. HSA's Brian Livengood was 10th. Hayden's second win in a row at Brainerd allowed him to add to his championship lead. After 11 of 16 rounds, he leads Bostrom, 349-307, with DuHamel, an uncomfortable fourth today, moving into third at 272. The win earned Hayden $4000 from the $40,000 Superbike purse. Bostrom took home $3200, with Chandler earning $2750. The forecast for the race was hot and slippery. The three-mile BIR road course had deteriorated considerably in the past year, according to the riders, with more bumps and cracks in the track filled with slippery sealant. Passing was an adventure, with riders having to thread their way through the slick spots in a number of places, especially turns four and five. Off the straight, there was a factory parade, all nine of the contracted riders running nose to tail. One by one they'd fall off. Yates lost the draft early, falling back before falling out with a mechanical problem. Mladin was gone on the 11 th lap, after a race spent in futile pursuit. "After Doug [Chandler] passed me [on the sixth lap], I kind of stayed behind Doug but I couldn't catch him until I got to turn four or five," Mladin said. "Nothing you could do with it. The unfortunate thing at the moment is the bike is particularly slow compared to what we're racing against, and it's unreliable." Picotte began to fall back about the fourth or fifth lap when his exhaust cracked, in advance of tire problems. "The middle of the tire was realIy, really hot," Picotte said. "Every time I tried to charge through the corner, the back end would come around, and finally it chunked all the way around. I finally finished the race. Mid-race maybe, I looked back at the tire, looked back at the exhaust, then I started weaving, not spending too much time in the middle of the tire." Chandler was at the front for most of the race, until Hayden and Bostrom cleared out, leaving Chandler to battle with Miguel DuHamel and. Kurtis Roberts. Hacking was behind Picotte for most of the race, passing him on the 15th lap. "We haven't hardly no time on the bike," Hacking said. "Chasing the setup all weekend long and this morning we went out with a fresh setup. Hopefully, we can put some laps on it and see what we can do. But it made one lap and the engine blew. So I started the race with a setup that we thought might work. The whole race, the thing through turn one was horrible. The front end, it was not comfortable at all. Just losing the front everywhere. So I just rode around and tried to enjoy my birthday." There were two races, the HaydenBostrom imbroglio, and Roberts, DuHamel, Chandler. Bostrom took the lead from Roberts on the eighth lap, outbraking him into turn three. A few turns later, Roberts' left foot came off the foot peg and he lost another spot. "I put my foot in a funny sort of angle and, if I hit a bump wrong, sometimes it will come off, but there was no drama," Roberts said. 'I ran kind of wide. I got in there a little deeper because I hadn't gone in there behind any people, so it kind of I've ever seen the Kawi run. It was quick at Road America, but it seemed faster here. The thing definitely had good speed." On top of that, Hayden was having a problem in the sixth-gear first turn. "All weekend, I felt awesome through turn one and two, and in the race I wasn't able to get in there like I could earlier in the week," Hayden said. "Kind of not happy about it because I felt so good through there all week. Getting down into one and even into two it was tough." The ninth lap was Hayden's fastest of the race, a lap of 1:37.427, about a second slower than Bostrom's pole time. Bostrom's lap was only .010 of a second off. "The lap times weren't particularly good," Bostrom said. "Then, once I got out there, we went from mid to high 38s to mid to low 37s." There was no resting for Bostrom, as Hayden was able to stay in his draft on the front straight and keep up through the infield. The move came on lap 17, Hayden powering past Bostrom on the front straight and crossing the line with over half a second in hand. It meant nothing. Bostrom was going nowhere and Hayden knew it. Hayden opened up his biggest lead of the second part of the race, a gap of nearly .7 of a second that evaporated in turn two. Roberts had tried Hayden in the final corner last year, coming tantalizingly close to his first win. Hayden remembered it and protected the line, guaranteeing the win. "You know, the last lap you just try to get all the corners clean," Hayden said. "If you overcharge, you make a mistake. The last lap, sucked me in." Hayden was then up to second and up to the challenge. "Eric's bike was running real good," he said, "probably the fastest cycll!! DuHamel (17) ran up front early but fell back Into the second group with Chandler and Roberts near the end. He eventually finished fourth. n I!! _ S • JULY 10, 2002 9