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place he ran off on Saturday. He rejoined the race in eighth, Bostrom now leading Hayden. Hayden's race ended on the seventh lap, when he tucked the front and slid off. "It was weird," Hayden began. "I got in there and felt fine, picked up the throttle and the thing just pushed under. It was pushing the front pretty bad most of the race, but I thought it was all right. So I just kept kind of pushing, trying pretty hard. I didn't feel real comfortable." The ensuing fire brought out the first red flag, Mladin getting a reprieve. He made the most of it. On the restart he was second, behind Bostrom, and holding, the rest of the factory riders strung out behind, but not for long. On the 12th lap, Roberts fell, taking out Yates, and stopping the race. "I was pushing the front a lot, and it just finally fell over," Roberts said. "Like it was falling over a lot, but it finally fell over where I couldn't get to Mladln (1) controlled much of the pace on Sunday. leading the race when It wasn't being In1errup1ed by reel flags. "We just decided to nurse it home, and we did," he said. RACE TWO best finish of the season. "I was watching my board, and it [the gap] was going up and down. I just worked on maintaining my lap times as the race went on. To get back on the box here was really nice." DuHamel came next, after getting held up by backmarkers in his quest to overtake Chandler. "It didn't look like it, but on the pit board one minute I was climbing back on him when he hit lapped riders, then I would hit the same riders, and depending on who got through better, the gap would really vary," he said. "I thought I had a good chance of catching him, but Doug [Chandler] did a great job not making any mistakes, and we got third." Teammate Kurtis Roberts ended the race in fourth, then threw up after drinking too much water. In the trailer a few minutes later, he was fine, but he was disappointed after being slowed by a dodgy front tire. "1 got behind Doug [Chandler], and the tire just started to go off, like that," he said of the late-race tire problem. "The thing was vibrating down the front straight. I'm like, 'That's great, this thing's out of round.' It stayed like that, then it got worse and the front started to get bad. On the brakes, the thing was folding over. Then Miguel [DuHamel] got around me. Like every lap it got a lot worse. I was trying not to crash the last five laps, and not even riding." Austin/Bleu Bayou Ducati's Pascal Picotte took fifth, slowed by front and rear tire troubles, then an engine vibration. any idea that it wouldn't end until it. I was getting on the throttle earlier in the comer to try to get off the rear. And I just went in there and was a little off line, by a couple of inches, I had to 4:31, three red flags later. Mladin got the jump, taking Bostrom and Hayden with him, Hayden slightly off the pace after a few laps. The first of the four final races began at 3: 10 p.m. on a hot and keep it leaned over that long. It fell, and I sort of picked it up, and it fell." Yates had nowhere to go, he and the Suzuki hitting the air fence on the Mladin made the race's first mistake on the fifth lap, running wide in the kink prior to turn one - the same sunny Sunday afternoon. No one had Mat Mladin began the season absent from the podium and ended it the same way, though the latter was by choice. The Blimpie! Yoshimura Suzuki rider skipped the podium ceremony after finishing a hair behind Kawasaki's Eric Bostrom in Sunday's Superbike race, causing no small amount of constemation for his team and employers. There was a hint of what was to come earlier in the weekend. After setting a new lap record in Friday qualifying, the three-time champ attributed his sub-par season to the reluctance of suspension supplier Showa to provide the team with the proper equipment. "Certain people have been holding back on parts, and we finally got some a couple of weeks ago and our bike's starting to feel like a motorcycle again," Mladin said without naming Showa by name. "Unfortunately, for the most of the year, I couldn't ride the bike. It was that bad. And [Mid] Ohio, it started coming better and actually feels pretty good here. So we'll see what happens. The unfortunate thing is we never had a real shot at even trying to win the championship this year." Mladin said the difference was that "both wheels are on the ground pretty much unless you don't want it to be. Before, both wheels were off the ground. The bike feels like a motorcycle again. You can actually push the front and slide the rear a bit and put it where you want to go. It's nice to have a bike to ride like that. Now I've just got to fmd me some confidence back in the bike. All year, the way it's been going, I haven't been able to ride. Hopefully, by next March, we'll be good to go.' MJadin certainly felt differently after Sunday's strung-out race. He led the most laps, but didn't win, coming up a wheel short to Eric Bostrom, after which he temporarily vacated the Yosh pits. When he returned, he gave credit to the Kawasaki tearn. "I didn't know he [Bostrom] was going to get me, but a couple of times he went around the outside of me. I mean, his bike's that fast for a 750, It's ridiculous,' he said. "But good on them. They're obviously working hard, and they deserve all the wins they've had here at the end of the year. I congratulate them for that. " As for his own effort: "This weekend is the best the bike's ever felt this year, but after eight or 10 laps, even less than that; from the start of the first race, as it goes in, it's only three or four laps after you go back out there, the thing just doesn't do the same as what it did for the first few laps," he said. "It's a frustrating thing. I'm a racer, and I don't come here because I get paid good money or anything eLse. I'm going to try to win. "I mean, five or six laps into that race and my bike was just out of control," Mladin said. "I mean, coming down the straight, the thing was just out of control. I was half scared of the thing down around the comer here. Just bucking everywhere. Then, in between the restarts, we had freezing, ice-cold towels on the shock trying to cool it down and stuff. It's factory racing, you shouldn't have to put an iced towel on the rear shock." The team didn't get complacent, MJadin said, and neither did he, even though there were rumblings of just that after his Daytona injury. "The one thing that disappoints me is the mutterings after Daytona. I hurt my elbow, and the next bunch of races 'He's still injured, and this and that this and that.' And then, all through the year, I couldn't get the bike working how I wanted. And, okay, I didn't give it 100 percent because I was tired of crashing all the time. I just rode and gave it the best I could without doing anything silly. Today we had a motorcycle that worked a little bit better, my effort level was no better than what it was for most of the rest of the year, and we were racing at the front. Obviously the problem wasn't me, but it's disappointing to hear that it might be." Mladin said he skipped the podium ceremony because he didn't want to say anything that would embarrass him and the team, but he was aware of how it would make Suzuki look. "That's certainly something that crosses your mind," he said. "For four years I've had nothing but praise for my team and my guys and everybody, and for once they need to understand how I feel sometimes. I mean, I've never taken any credit for winning any of these races. I've always given to everybody else. For once, they need to understand how I feel. "I don't regret anything. I regret that not enough hard work was put in this year to help us be competitive. I regret the suspension debacle for the whole year. This year was really a waste of time for Team Suzuki. I mean, we were never going to win this championship, unfortunately." Early in the weekend, MJadin said that he would race Formula Xtreme if the rules didn't even the playing field. "This championship is full of good motorcycles, especially those Hondas, and the Kawasaki is obviously pretty decent and a couple of the riders on those bikes are pretty decent as well, so you can't afford to give anything away," MJadin said. If he races, it will be in the U.S. "Yeah I have a contract. I certainly won't be going anywhere else. There's no point. And it sounds like sour grapes, but what's the point in coming back jf you're two seconds a lap off the pace at Daytona? What's the point? What's the point if, down this front straightaway here [at VIR], you're nearly 10 mph slower than the Ducati and about seven mph slower than the Honda and about nine or 10 mph slower than the Kawasaki. What's the point? We can't win anyway." That said, Mladin gave a hint that he'll be ready to do battle when the time comes. "We don't know what's happening with rules and stuff for next year, but the most important thing is to have a good testing program," he said. "And whichever suspension we use, and whatever we're doing next year, they're going need to step up and do what they need to do to help us out." cue I _ n _ _ S • AUGUST 21, 2002 11