Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles
Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/128319
Pro Hohda Oils S upers port Se r ies Briefly... e rre d in saying that Mladin and Duhamel were tied with 500 wins after the first race on Saturday, the confere nce atte ndees laughed, with Mladin joking to Duhame l: "Y ou're going to have to race until your 90 to catch that ." Ben Spies is Allalong, Mladin has been stating that matching and breaking Duhamel's record wasn't something that did much for him. O n Saturday, he admitted that the record might be nice to look back on one day. "One day it might, but hones tly,as I said at Dayto na. records are meant to be broken," Mladinsaid. "It's one of those things that I've tied now, and now I have to try and get in front . You never take anything in this game for granted. Miguel has been doing this a long time, and he'll think of something tonight to try and get up there. It's grea t to try and get a lot of wins and stuff. One day when I'm old, I'll be trying to convince somebody that I was a pretty good motorbike rider, and I can point to the book and say, 'Look, I've got all those wins.' Up until now, I'm not keen Tommy Hayden (22) won the Supersport race at Fontana, beating Ben Spies and his brother, Roger lee Hayden. Damon Buckmaster (6) cra shed out of the race while running in the lead pock. the meat in a Kentucky Green sandwich Hayden Sandwich By Scan RO USSEAU PHOTOS BY HENNY RAy ABRAMS T he w h o le Pro Honda O ils Supersport final at Fontana m ight be best e xpl ained in halves: What happened before the restart , and what hap pened after the restart. That's because a red flag sp lit t he 17-lap race almost perfectly in two. Even so, the outcome was never in doubt , as Team Kawasaki 's Tommy Hayden dominated both halves or t he whole race - depending on your point of view. After building a lead of .804 of a second over Team Yamaha's Damon 8uckmaster in the first nine laps of the race , Hayden's advantage was wasted when privateer Yamaha rider Pedro Valiente crashed . The incident caused AMA officials to throw a red flag, and the riders returned to the starting grid . But the 2S-year-old Hayden was unfazed . He simply grabbed another ho leshot and pulled away again to earn his first win of the year, the eighth AMA Supersport win of his career, and the 30th for the Kawasaki brand . It also gave him the series points lead. Hayden is now atop the leaderboard with 66 points, four better than Daytona winner Jaso n DiSalvo, who finished sixth at Fontana. Yoshimura Suzuki's Ben Spies was second, and Hayden's brother and Kawasaki teammate, Roge r Lee Hayde n, was t hird . "Today we nt really well from the very begi nning," Tommy Hayden said. "I got the ho leshot bo th times. I felt really confident going into the race, and I figured that if I rode as good as I felt in practice that I could set t he pace. I knew there would be some guys who could push me the whole way, but from the start it went good . I just put my head down and went faster and faster, tried to knoc k like a tenth off every time. I had a really good rhythm going, a nd I never really saw anyone. Then we got the red flag." He may not have seen the competition, but Hayden was being hounded by no fewer than three riders to that point in the race, as Buckmaster, reig ning AMA Superspo rt Champion Jamie Hacking and Spies were all well w ithin striking distance when Valiente unloaded in a vicious highside in the infield before the completion of lap 10. It would not be the last time that the privateer would figure into the action of this particular race, either. On the resta rt, Tommy Hayden pulled clear again . "I knew that with the race only being nine laps, we didn't have to worry about t ires ," Hayden said . "I figured that I could get into the 27s , and I told myse lf that if I could click off some 27s at the beginning, I didn't know how many other people would be able to do that. Igot the ho leshot and just started clicking them off." Hayden's faste st lap was a 1:27.879, which came on the out lap after the restart. After running second be fore the red flag , Buckmaster's race went to hell in a hand basket in the second half. The 31year-old Australian got a poor run off the grid and then crashed out of the race 2 1/2 laps later. The end came in about the same spot on t he track t hat had caused Honda Superbike rider Ben Bostrom's crash in Saturday's Superbike final. " I think on the first start I burned my clutch up a little bit , and on t he restart it was actually slipp ing fo r the first hundred yards," Buckmaster said . "The guys kind o f got around me and took off a little bit . I was just trying to make up that gap, and I pushed a little too hard , clipped the curb on finishing racing in the near future . so hope fullywe can rack up some more." and down I went. Just e xiting that fast flick left-to-right [tu rns seven and eight], I just caught t he fro nt wheel and couldn't save it. Obviously it's d isappoint ing, but we will come bac k from this. We 're making some progress with the bikes , and I th ink pretty soon you 're going to see a bit of a win streak." Spies, meanwhile, left little doubt that he will be a force to be reckoned with no matter what class he races by finishing a strong second . Fourth before the red flag, t he Texan was able to force his way past Hacking fo r second after Buckmaster crashed; he then worked hard to chase down Tommy Hayden . Spies cut the fastest lap of the race on the final circuit, a I:27.64 2, and wound up .437 of a second behind Hayden at the finish. "It was good ," Spies sa id. " My bike worked awesome. I wish I co uld have gotten around Jamie a couple laps earlier, because the n I t hink I m ight have been able to race a little bit with Tommy although I don't think that I would have been able to beat him . He wasn't making any m istakes. I moved in on the last lap, and I tried to give it a go, but I couldn't get in close enough." It appeared as though he might, but then Spies nearly ran off the track in turns seven and eight just as he was pulling into Hayden's shadow on the last lap. "I lost a couple tenths t here, but I wouldn't have gotten close enough to pass him," Spies said . "I just went into left a little too hot, so I flicked it to the right, an d the rear tire came off the grou nd a little bit. It just kind of got me o ff line, and I just didn' t ge t close enough to get up to him." After not loo king so hot in the first nine laps, Team Kawasak i's Roger Lee Hayden was one o f the factory stars to benefit fro m the red flag. In the se cond half of the race, One thing Duhamel liked abo ut California Speedway was the tro phy. And he made sure to po int out that fact in the press conference on Saturday afternoon. "First of all, I want to congratulate Fontana for giving us some pretty cool trophies," the Honda rider said. "Youguys stepped it up. I'm serious, did you see the plate I got from winning the Xtreme at Daytona this year... I think like $2.55 on that . 50 you guys did a great job on that. " How serious is Nicky Hayden? The Repsol Honda MotoGP rider was at California Speedway to watch his brothers Tommy and Roger Lee do batt le, but it didn't interfere with his training regimen . On Sunday morning, Hayden was spotted jogging through an industrial complex a few miles from the racetrack. And he's been at it the entire time he's been here , according to Roger Lee. "He woke up at 3 o'clock the other morn ing and went the gym," Roger Lee said. "He said it was just him and the janitor." When Nicky returned to his room , his father Earl woke up, thought he'd overslept and promptly got ready for his day. Then he realized it was only 5 a.m. At that point, Nicky was ready to go for a run, so Earl joined him on a bicycle. When raindrops started falling on Saturday's Superhike National, Erion Honda's Ja ke Ze m ke thought the AMAshould have pulled the plug on the race . It brought up the question as to whether race leader Ma t Mlad in could have put his hand up to try to get the race stop ped , similar to the procedure often used in MotoGP."You know what, ifwe were in FIM, that wo uld be great, but the AMA wou ld just ignore it," Zemke sa id. "I'm just rea llysurprised at them not taking any act ion. It's rea llyupsetting to think that con tinued on page 24 www.cy clenews.com CYCLE NEWS • APRIL 14 , 2004 23