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AMAIChevy Trucks U.S. Superbike Series Rounds 4/5: Infineon Raceway By PAUL CARRUTHERS PHOTOS BY HENNY RAY ABRAMS SONOMA, CA, MAY 3-4 our wins in five starts. That equates to dominance. But Mat Mladin isn't buying into it, at least not publicly. "At the moment, you can't say dominance," Mladin said after winning both of the AMA/Chevy Trucks U.S. Superbike Nationals at Infineon Raceway. "We're five races into an 18-race season. It's early in the season, and we have a long way to go. We have a 24-point lead, so it's far from over." Or is it? While the rest of the AMA Superbike field also won't publicly admit it, they're worried. Very worried. And with good reason. Mladin and his Yoshimura Suzuki GSX-Rl000 were in another world at Infineon Raceway, the site of the most abbreviated weekend of action in the recent history of AMA Superbike racing. The action on track was as condensed as Mladin was good. Practice? Rained out. Qualifying? Cancelled after a seepage problem with the racetrack made the track unridable (see sidebar story). So how about a weekend's worth of racing in one day? That's what it amounted to, as the AMA was able to run practice for five classes and six final events on a single Sunday in Northern California. Very little practice and zero qualifying made hardly a difference to Mladjn and his Yoshimura Suzuki crew. They were fast out of the gate, F 10 MAY 14, 2003' c u e I e and they only got faster, taking full advantage of the situation while those around them floundered. The only man who even came close to Mladin over the course of the weekend was his Yoshimura Suzuki teammate, Aaron Yates, the Georgian finishing second both times out. The factory Hondas were able to get on the podium twice as well, though not as high on that podium as they would have liked. In the first race on Sunday morning, Miguel DuHamel led for two laps then chased Mladin gallantly before his soft tires forced him to abandon the chase. Mladin had correctly chosen a harder compound Dunlop, and so had Yates. The result: Mladin was able to pull away from DuHamel while Yates pounced from behind, moving into second on the 23rd of 28 laps to take the runner-up spot. Still, DuHamel had fared better than the rest at trying to stop the Yosh train, and he ended up third, despite the less-thanwise tire selection. We'll never know how good DuHamel would have been with the right tires, as he didn't get the opportunity to show us. Between the two Superbike Nationals, DuHamel raced in the 600cc Supersport final, and on the last lap (while battling for third place) he was highsided from his CBR600RR, suffering a broken collarbone in the melee and taking himself out of the second race. In the second outing, Ben Bostrom flew the Honda flag. The Californian led off the start, and although both Yates and Mladin passed him, he held n e _ s steady to finish third. This came after a rather lackluster fifth in the first race, Bostrom one of the many victims of choosing the wrong tire as the lack of practice time wreaked havoc on many a top Superbike racer when it came to picking tire compounds. Or the correct tire compounds. Kawasaki's Eric Bostrom had a frustrating weekend, finishing fourth and fifth in the two races. The results themselves weren't that bad, but the fact that Eric was well off the pace in both races proved exasperating for one of the preseason favorites to earn the 2003 Superbike crown. Like the others, Eric was hindered by the lack of track time, but he was even more frustrated by the fact that he and the team couldn't duplicate the setup that had worked so well for them during Miguel DuHamel (171 led the start of the first AMA Superbike National at Infineon Raceway over Mat Mladin (661. Ben Bostrom (1551. Kurtis Roberts (801 and Eric Bostrom (321. preseason testing at Infineon. Erion Honda's Kurtis Roberts competed at Infineon with a bum shoulder, the result of a separation just three weeks ago when he crashed his dirt bike. All things considered, Roberts had a decent weekend with his seventh- and fourth-place finishes, but he - like the rest - left full of frustration at having no answer for the Suzuki dominance. Mat Mladin (661 soon took over at the front in the first race. with DuHamel (171 giving chase.