AMA Chevy Trucks U.S. Superbike Championship
Round 617: Road Atlanta
By PAUL CARRUTHERS
PHOTOS BY HENNY RAY ABRAMS
BRASELTON, GA, MAY 17·18
ho came away with more from
Road Atlanta - Aaron Yates or
Eric Bostrom? Or was it Mat Mladin?
If you look at it from the standpoint of
who scored the most points, then
Yates and Bostrom came out of Georgia on equal footing, each leaving
with 64 more points than what they'd
arrived with. Yates would have to get
the nod, however, because he won a
race during the doubleheader week·
end known as the Suzuki Showdown.
But what of Mladin? Although he
came into the event with a four-race win
streak and a lead in the championship,
he left without both. But the fact that
he walked out of Georgia in one piece
might actually make him the biggest
winner of them all, considering the
havoc he went through in Saturday's
first Superbike National.
While streaking away to what
looked to be his fifth win in a row,
Mladin's rear Dunlop tire came apart
on Road Atlanta's back straightaway.
As the Australian traveled well over
150 mph, the GSX-RIOOO went into a
tankslapper as the tire disintegrated
under him. With a miraculous save,
Mladin rode the bike into the sandtrap
before toppling over, his race and
W
8
MAY 28, 2003'
cue
I
e
points lead vanishing in a cloud of
been dominant. He'd led practice,
next day and prove that he and his
smoking rubber. All things consid-
he'd qualified on pole position, and
Yoshimura Suzuki are still the combination to beat in the 2003 AMA
ered, he was a very lucky man -
he was running away with the first
points situation be damned.
race until the tire incident. Undaunt·
Superbike Championship. In the
Up until that point, Mladin had
n e _
s
ed, he was able to come back the
process, Mladin started what he
