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Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/128319
27 . Eric [Bo st ro m] ke pt it tough t here fo r
ha lf the race, and I managed to stretch it
ou t a little bit t hro ugh some traffic. I was
really aggressive through the first part of
traffic all the way up to lap 22 o r 23 , or
thereabouts. I got a couple of clear laps
and ran it bac k down to the 26s and started to really try and open the gap. That's
what we did , and w e got it out to about
10 sec o nds and just held on to the end. It
was a good race, and it' s been a good
start to th e seaso n, and hopefully we can
ke e p it up ."
When asked if Mladin had upped the
pace in traffi c, Bostrom said : " I w e nt
backwards. The tires were good, but the
bike was geared really tall and losing th at
momentum through th e t raffic... I just
couldn't keep a rhythm, and it was hard to
t ry and get around those guys."
Mladin had e xpected a Bo st ro m ch allenge in the warmer temperatures . He
know s how Micheli ns w o r k.
"T he track was qu ite a bit warmer,"
Mladin said. "Fifte e n degrees, maybe 20
degrees centigrade warmer. We knew
to da y that Eric wo uld have so me more
for us be cause of the warm co ndit io ns at
t his rac etrack. We were pretty sure that
was going to be the case, but we kne w
what we cou ld do if we had to. Be fo re t he
race, we believed that it was go ing to be
a tougher race, for s ure. We know w hat
they have down there and what they are
ca pable of."
Bos trom was d isappointed , having
no w been beaten by his rival in three
straight races, but he bel ieves the best is
MLADIN PILES
Steve Crevier (714) came clown from
Canada to compete, and compete he
did, finishing sixth in both races after
race-Ion battles with Geoff May
(199) bath times out,
ye t to come.
"Mat has always been t he strongest
guy on this track, and it seems like their
who le package works - th e bike and him ,"
Eric Bo st ro m said . "T his is, I s uppose, as
close as we've ever been to him here, and
we've been able to go on and beat him at
other tracks . He wi ll obvio usly go good at
Sears [Infineon Raceway] and onward, but
I knew he would be dominant he re . He
was do minant in tes ting . We go t off to a
really poor start on Friday. It's a new
team, and that part is hard. We didn't
communicate well on Friday, and we did n't rebound at all for the second session,
and we w e nt no qu icke r - we w eren't
IT
ON
Yoshimura Suzuki's Mat Mladin could have taken it easy today, and
his lap time from Friday's qualifyingsession would have earned him
the 34th pole position of his illustrious AHA Superbike career. But
there was a lap record to be broken at California Speedway, and
Mladin had the Dunlop qualifyingtires to go out and get it. So he did,
earning pole position and breaking his year-old record in the
process.
Racingjust minutes from his Rancho Cucamonga
home, Mladinsped to a record-setting lap of 1:24.759,
breaking the old record of 1:25.123. Mladin, though ,
was qulck to point out that this year's lap was not
overly impressive, considering that last year Dunlop
didn't bring out qualifying tires . With the presence of
Ducati Austin's Eric Bostrom and his Michelin tires,
the qualifiers are back out of the Dunlop truck. And
they make a difference .
"Last year was a litt le slower than what it could
have been because we didn't have qualifying tires and
this year we do, so the lap speed is going to be quicker this year," Mladin said. "It was good to break the
lap record, but the tire is worth a lot of lap time compared to what
we used last year. Everything is going okay at the moment, and we 'll
see what happens this afternoon."
Erion Racing's Jake Zemke slotted his Honda CBRIOOORR into
the second spot on the front row, the Northern Californian lapping
at I:25.484, taking over a second off his best lap from yesterday.
"It was fairly uneventful," Zemke said. "The first part of the session I was trying a potential race tire , and I put 10 laps on it to see
what it would do ... I don't think that will be the tire I race on . Then I
put a qualifier on, and it was pretty much business as usual. I've got a
good Idea of what [tires] I want to run. I just wanted to try that tire
to see what it could do ."
The third spot on the front row went to American Honda's
Miguel Duhamel , the French Canadian gaining time with a new triple
clamp that helped him through the fast kink. Duhamel lapped at
ab le to be progressive with the bike.
Finally, we were able to get there, but it
was too late to get thi ngs working in ou r
d ire ction . Each time we've been on the
bike , we've had a be tte r bike . But t here
just wasn't enough time, and Mat 's package just works well here. Th is is by far his
be st track."
Th ird on this day wo uld fall to Zemke ,
the Erion Racing rider turn ing in a consistently fast race to earn t he spot - even
though Duhamel was charg ing back from
his poor start to finish just th ree seconds
ad rift at the finish.
"We went out there and got a fairly
decent start, and I w as in second, but Eric
I:25.688 , quite a bit better than his effort of Friday. To put Mladin's
34 pole positions Into perspective, Duhamel is next on the list as far
as active riders go - and he has eight!
"We made a lot of progress today," Duhamel said. "We tried different triple clamps, and that was a big part of my faster lap times
today. I'm really pleased . I've got this crazy feeling that I left a lot of
time out there personally, but it's a good disappointment, I guess,
because I think the bike could have done better. I'm happy to be
here, happy to be on the front row. The weather is playinga factor
as far as tire choice goes . We have a big selection and five,
10 degrees in the racetrack makes a big difference , and
California Speedway is kind of tough on the tires. It will be
crucial. It's a doub leheader, and hopefully we get it right
both days."
American Honda's Ben Bostrom would fill the front
row after lapping at a best of 1:25.900 - and that came
after his crew completely went through his motorcycle on
Friday night to search for a "gremlin" that was causing him
problems.
''T he re are five guys, and we edged one [Ducati's Eric
Bostrom] off the front row," Ben Bostrom said. "That
works really well here because it' s a little bit hard to pass.
You definitely want to be up front here. Mat [Mladin] is the
guy we've got to catch up to , so you just want to get a good start
and go up and chase the guys around. We'll try and make up for it
and get on the pod ium."
As for tires, Ben Bostrom was , like the others, a bit unsure of
what he would be using.
"No one has had much time because the trac k time has been so
short," Bostrom said. "Y do 10 laps on one tire , 10 laps on anothou
er tire , and it's like, 'Ah, I don 't know.' The race is 28 laps. I've got
22 laps on one tire , and I'll probably end up racing on it. Everyone is
in the same boat, and whoever wins on that tire , everyone will be
looking at that tire for tomorrow."
Ducati Austin's Eric Bostrom would lead the second row after
post ing a I:26.056. Team Prieto Racing's Geoff May, DX5 Diablo
Suzuki's Steve Crevier and Corona Extra Suzuki's Marty Craggill
would join him on row two.
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[Bo stro m] got by pretty qu ickly and
pulled away," Zemke said . "We ro lle d the
dice o n a setup. We've been searching all
weekend for the setup fo r myself. It just
seemed like we w ere se arc hing for gri p all
weekend lon g, and we neve r seemed to
find it . The guys worked their tai ls off.
T hey went upside dow n basically to try
and find me some gri p, and I just couldn't
co me to terms w ith finding it. Obviously,
we had grip w ith the qual ifying tire, and
things were fine then, but we just couldn't get that grip to be consistent throughout a ru n. The bike today was a whole lot
better than yesterday, and cond itions
w ere qu ite a bit different, and the tire we
chose w as different as w e ll. It w as good.
Ben [Bostrom] came by me in the m iddle
of the ra ce , and as soon as he did , o ur
pace dropped . I could see that Miguel
[Duhamel] was catching us at that po int ,
and then we started to come up on traffic, and I passed him [Ben] right be fo re w e
got up on traffic. Luckily, I co uld put a little gap on him . I was happy to take that to
the finish, "
On the final lap, Du hamel worked his
way around t he somewhat surprised Ben
Bostrom (se e My O wn Race ) to finish
fo urth . Bo st ro m was fifth, with Crevier
leading the priva teer parade in sixth
place after anothe r race-long battle w ith
eN
M~
CAU FOR NIA S PEEDWAY
F O NTANA, CAU FOR N IA
R ESU L
TS: A PRIL 3-4, 2004 (ROUN DS
2-3)
SlBK Q UAUFYIN G: I. Mal MLld ( U 4.7 59; 2. Jake
in
Ze mke ( 1:25:481 ); 3. Miguel Duhamel ( 1:25.688);