Pro Hond a Oil s S upersport Series
the youngest of the t hree Hayden bro the rs
upped his pace considerably, taking advantage of a miscue by Hac king - who had to
dive off the track to miss none other than
Valiente - on lap 15 to secure the th ird spot .
Roge r Lee finished 2.342 seco nds behi nd
his brother at the finish, but more importa ntly he lande d his second 5upersport finish in as many ro unds to maintain a solid
third place in the series standings.
"1 was kind o f praying for a red flag
there, and I go t it ," Roger Lee Hayden
said . "My first start was terrible . I was
back in about ninth. I came through, and I
was catching the ne xt group, but it was a
little too slo w. We got the red flag, and I
got a pretty go od start the ne xt t im e . I
knew that Hac king was holding up Spies a
little bit , because Ben ke pt looki ng back
and giving me a little heads hake o f frust ra t ion . So I knew whe n he got by Hacking
that I would have to make a move pretty
quickly because Spies would try to put a
gap. He got by, and he was just gone. He
was closing up to To m , and I knew the
o nly chance I'd have w as if those two tangled . That didn't happen, but the b ike ran
good, an d I felt strong the w ho le race."
Part of t hat st rength may lie in the fact
that Hayden has obviously been training
his ass o ff - literally. Hayden claimed to
have lost clo se to 25 pounds in the offseason. It was definitely noticeable at
My
Fontana, and it may have helped him the
most o n lap 15 w hen he had to fen d off
Hacking, who rebounded and t ried to
draft Roge r Lee up the front straightaway
on t he ne xt lap. Hacking couldn't get it
done, and afterward he was frust ra te d
over the incide nt that cost him the th ird
spot - more so after he 'd learned that the
rider he'd had to avoid was the same guy
w ho caused the re start in t he first place.
"1 didn 't even know abo ut that until
somebody just told me, but it's the same
old shit, you know?" Hacking said. "Race
after race, it's those lap ped riders... and
they [AMA] still ar en't doing anything to
prevent it . I wouldn't have been happy
with third , but we could have gotten by
with th ird today. We definitely have got to
do some work on our bike s. I t hink that
w e 're down a littl e bit on speed .
"1cut the co rne r to try and get around
that lapped ride r, and they told us that if
we cut the track, they we re go ing to dock
us like 1 seconds or something like that,"
0
Hacking continued. "50, I let him [Roge r
Lee Hayden] go , and t he n I figured I'd just
get him right back, but I couldn't do any thing w ith him. I came o ut of the last corne r down there, and I had the thing floored
and couldn't even make a run on him. I
do n't thi nk that I have ever be en pissed off
that bad to finish fourth place in my life."
Round ing out the top flve was ano the r
34
OWN RACE
40
Jason DiSalvo
6th
After getting a poor start and a poor restart, Daytona Supersport
winner DiSalvo found himself dicing with Team Yamaha teammate
and Dayton a Superstock winne r Aaron Go bert. The 20-year-old
New Yorker was able to keep Gobert in sight until the tire lost grip,
and he had to settl e for sixt h. It was
good enough to keep him second in
the ser ies points standings. "Y
ou
know, I was just happy to get out of
here w ith some po ints," DiSalvo said.
"To still be second in the champions hip, I'm stoked about that . Th is is
not one of my best tracks, and nei- ....- - ther is Sears coming up, but I just have to survive right now. I pretty
much had bad starts every time that I started here , but the main
co nce rn for me was just staying upright and being able to finish the
race and get those points that we need. I'm just try ing to think about
the big pict ure here. Our bike is good, but it seems like a lo t of
oth er bikes have gotten a lot faster since Daytona. "
5
Steve Rapp
7th
Valv
oline EMGO Suzuki's Steve Rapp said that his seventh-place run
was better than he expected . "I q ualified 10th, and I thought that
maybe we'd be arou nd ninth, but we
were two spots better," said the 3 1year-o ld, who lives just down the
road in Perris, California. "We just
need to work on ou r dr ives off the
corn ers a little bit . That' s the o nly
place where we are rea llylacking. I
don't fee l too bad. This place is hard
to make up time on because there is
no place to rea llyhang it out. The corners are all so slow, so it's really hard to get ahead once you get beh ind. I think Sears Point will be
better fo r us. Our tires were really good on the 600 ."
24
APRil 14, 2004 •
CYCL E N EWS
Team Yamaha rider, Aaro n Gobert, who
pretty m uch held down the fifth spot in both
halves of the race. Gobert spent much of his
time fending off teammate Jason D i5alvo and
Attack Kawasaki's Tony Meiring.
eN
CAUFORNIA SPEEDWAY
FO NTAN A, C AUFORNIA
RESULTS: APRIL 4, 20 04 ( ROUND
2
OF
I 1)
PRO HONDA OILS S/SPT: I. Tommy Hayden
(!n' R;ggs (yam); 20. Brad Hendry (Yam 21.
am)
);
Giovann i Rojas (Y
arn); 22. Nathan Hest er (Y ; 23 . Tyle r
am)
Jones (Yam); 24 . Joh n Bowm an (Y
am) ; 25. Matt Zurbu
chen
(Yam); 26. Chris Sieben haar (Han); 27. Dirk Sanchez (Kaw);
28. C lint McBain (Suz); 29. Matt hew Hartli eb (Suz); 30.
Damon Buckmaste r (Y ; 3 1. Jere my Haiduk (Yam 32.
amj
);
am)
Anthony Manciu (Yam); 3. Mont ez Stewan (Y ; H .
Jose ph Shelton (Yam); 35. Tim Coo k (Yam); 36. Richard
Ford (Yam); 37. Tim Knutson (Yam); l8. Pedro Valiente
(Yam); 39. Dou8 y enez ia (Yam); 40. Chris Siglin (Yam); 4 1.
tamer Kekhia (Yam); 42 . Nathan Wait (Kaw); 43 . Heat h
Small (Yam).
Race Time: N/A due to red flag
Distance : 17 laps, ~0.12 miles
Margin of victo~ 0.437 sec .
~~;gpeR6e:t~N~;uO:~~~
SER IES POINTS
STAN DING S (After 2 of I I r o un d s): I. Tommy Hayden
(6611 win); 2. Jason DiSalvo (62/ 1 win); 3. Roger l ee
Hayde n (61); 4. (TIE) Jamie Hacking (54)1Aaron Gobert
(54); 6. Michael Bam", (4 7); 7. 5teve Raw (46); B. Tony
Meiring (42); 9. l ee Acree \39); 10 . Jason Pe rez (3S); I I.
Ben ~ies (12); 12. Dann~ Es ick (29); 13. Darre n luck (28);
14. ( li E) Aaron Yates 24)JDamon Buckmas te r (24); 16.
(TIE) Ben Attard (23) Joh n Bow man (23); 18. Nathan
Heste r (22); 19. Giovanni Rojas (2 1); 20. N icky Moore ( 19).
UPCOMING ROUNDS:
Round 3. Sonomo, California, May 2
Raund 4. Birmingham, Alaba ma, May 1
6
Michael Barnes
9th
The Prieto Racing Y
amaha -backed Barnes was one of the riders to
benefit from the red flag near the middle of the race , as it allowed
him to replace a ben t whee l and go fo r a fresh set of Pirelli tires.
The changes wou ld be good enough to
see him to ninth place by the end of the
race . "1guess that I was getti ng a little
too aggressive going throug h the rightleft kink, and I got off the track there
and be nt a wheel, which is e xactly what
I did last year here," the 35-year-old
Floridian said. ' ~fter the red flag, I figured out a better line. and I
was getting through there better. My tires seemed to work better
fo r me after the res tart. It was a new set of tires . I still had so me
pretty big slides, and I lost positions to [jason] DiSalvo and [Steve]
Rapp, but all in all it was a really good weekend for us. The Pirelli
tires are just phenomenal, and my mecha nic worked his butt off all
weekend, as usual. I'm rea lly happy to co me o ut with another top10, and we 're just going to try to consistently do that as much as we
can th is year."
505
Nicky Moore
12t h
The California dirt-track and supermoto ace is already be ing touted
in the paddock as a youngster to watch, and he didn't disappoint in
his AMA National deb ut at Fontana, finishing 12th after qualifying
ISth aboa rd his privateer Honda C BR600RR. It put him 20th in the
series points stan dings. "We we re
strugg ling a litt le bit off the line when
we first we nt out there," Moore said.
"We had a little too much air in the
rea r tire, and I was slipping up a litt le
bit. Then I lost my left knee puck, so
that wasn' t really too good. The red
flag helped us out a lot. We changed the tires, and I was trying to
hang with the top guys. I just want to thank Race Tech , Arai, NJK
Leathers and Stockton Honda. I'm really happy with 12th. I'm just
hap py to be out he re. I was just going for the top IS. I got 12th, and
I didn't get lapped."
40th Anniversary
Briefly...
continued from page 23
they'll just leave us out there when it's
raining. The last two laps it was getti ng
bad; it was getting really bad . Even before
that , halfway on , going in off the back
straightaway, when I'd go to brake fo r the
corner off this back straightaway after the
signal area , you co uldn't even see because
your faceshie ld is full of water and your
windscreen's full of water. It's like you 're
doing BO down the freeway in a rainstorm.
I'm not quite sure, but slick tires and rain
don't mix too well."
Team Prieto Racing's Geoff May is starting
to get some notice in the pad doc k, at least
by one veteran racer who spent some
time on the track with him at California
Speedway. "I'm pretty impressed with
him," Steve Crevier said. "He moves
around pretty good on the bike, and he
sure didn't fatigue like I did." May beat
Crevier for fifth on the first day, and then
Crevier fought back to beat the Floridian
on day two fo r sixth .
When ever Mat Mladin goes on a roll like
the one he's on , questions come up as to
w hy he 's still here - at least with the
local media who can't believe someone
w ith this sort of success hasn't moved on .
"I don't think the re is a next level," Mladin
said when asked. "There are maybe three
or four motorcycles you can race in
MotoGp, but other than tha t.. . Ifyou can't
get on the top couple of bikes over there ,
there's no point in going - so to me there
is no next level. World Superbike is not a
step up. That's not go ing to happen. I'm
32, so I'm sure that none of the factories
are going to ring me and offer $1 0 million
a year to go and race MotoGp, so th is is
my level."
You have to look tw ice at Roger Le e
Hayd e n to rec ognize him, the Kawasaki
factory rider having lost roughly 25 pounds
since the last race of the 2003 season .
Fondly known as "Po rk Chop" around the
paddock in previous years , perh aps "Prosciutto " would now be more fitting for the
svelte Roger Lee. "I'm 2S pounds lighter
than I used to be," the you ngest of the
Hayden boys said. "Last year I started road
biking, and I've just continued with it. And
I've been doing some mountain biking out
here and a lot of dirt biking. I can tell a diffe re nce . I'm eating bett e r and getting up
earlier. I was just tired of getting beat. I
want to make sure I'm as ready as they
are ."
Hand cramps and numbness kept Erion
Ho nda's Anthony Go be rt from making a
bigger splash in his return to America . The
machine, he said was fast but wasn't set up
properly and didn't handle. "It' s low in t he
back," he said after finishing 16th in the
Repsol Supe rstoc k race. "1 know what it is.
It's got too much fo rk oil. We've got to get
rid of the fork oil and let it sit in the front.
Right now it's sitting on the fork oil and
wanting to spring up. I can't turn it, then I
continued on poge 26
