later whe n he 'd stall until lap nine w he n
he was into t hird having passed DiSalvo .
T he final six lap s he closed, but not
enough.
" I was right on his back tire, and the
las t lap going into tum two I seen some
traffic coming up, and I was going to try to
stay ahead, but I had a littl e slide and rode
on t he white line off of tum two fo r a long
ways," Hay den said. ':Alm ost was in the
dirt, so I lost a lot of time there. By the
e nd , he had a pretty good gap. I tried to
stay as close as I could, but the last half of
the lap I didn 't push super hard because
there wasn't no way I was going to make
up a second, just try to keep it sol id. I didn't want to throwaway third place,
because it's still good for the championship."
DiSalvo was o ve r 10 seconds back in
fo urth, no th reat to Hayden a nd more
than seven seconds in front of teammate
Aaron Gobert. Kawasaki's Roge r Le e
Hayd e n went at Gobert to the e nd with
Yoshimura Suz uki's Aaron Yates also in
the fra y.
eN
My OWN
96
IN FIN EO N RACEWAY
SoNOMA, CAUFORNIA
RESU LTS MAy 2, 2004 (ROUND
:
3)
PRO HONDA O ILS SlSPT, I. Ben Spies ($en (Han); 20. G.-ant Riggs (Yom); 2 1.
Andy Cannan (Yom); 22. C 35. Heath SmaU (Yam); 36. Montez Stewart
:
(Yom); J7 . Charlie Hewett (Tn); 38. Darren Murrey (Yam).
TIm e : 28 min. 19.51 sec.
Distance: 17 laps. 39.44 miles
Average speed: 83.S.... mph
M.argin of victory: 1.324 sec .
PRO HON DA OI LS SlSPT C 'SH IP PO INTS STANDINGS (Afte, J 01 II ro,m,ts) , I. Tommy Hayde n (9 511
win); 2. Jason DiSatvo (89/1 win ); 3. (TIE) [amte
Hack ;"&'floger Lee Hayden (86 ); 5. Aaron Goben (80 ); 6.
Ben Spies (70111 ); 7. M;chael Barnes (6 7); 8 . 5t eve Raw
(65); 9. 100y Me;nng (6 J); 10. Lee ""ree (57) ; I I. Jason
Perez (SO); 12. Aaron Yates (48); 13. (TI E) Ben
AttardIDomon Buckmaster (46); IS. Darren Luck (42); 16.
(TIE) Chris Pensl)omle Bowman(J I); 18. Danny Eslick (29);
19. Nathan Hest e r (28 ); 20. Craig Connell (26 ).
UPCOMING ROUNDS
Round 4 . Birminghom, Aloboma, May 16
R
ound 5 . Founlain, Colorado, May 30
RACE
Aaron Gobert
5th
Th ird in the early going, Aaron Go bert 's energy level began to
fall as the race went o n, the exertion of the earlie r Superstock
race beginning to show. More than two years on since his hor rific accide nt at Dayto na Internatio nal Speedway, there are still
lingering effects. "I'm just dealing with it and trying to get
through it. We didn't come out too bad after all. Ben [Spies] took maximum po ints, and
he's still behind us. That's it really. I was fighting it th e whole time ."
95
Roger Le e Hayden
6th
Roge r Lee Hayden wasn't offering any excuses for finishing a
close sixth in the Supersport race. "I didn't have the speed th is
weekend to run with them guys. They left me . Basically, everybody just rode better than I did, to be honest. Got my butt
kicked this weekend. I'm glad Birmingham's o nly a few weeks
away, beca use it's going to be a rough time 'til the n."
20
Aaron Yates
7th
Throughout the race weekend, Y imura Suzuki's Aaron Yates
osh
was trying to fix a fro nt-e nd glitch. The team seemed to hit a
wall after the first pra ctice, so much so that his faste st lap in the
race was abou t as fast as he went in the first ses sion on Friday
morning . "I figured out [Saturd ay] afte rnoon in qu alifying that
I'm suffering with the fron t end kind of kicking back and just no t
real con fident In the fro nt and be ing able to stick it in the turns,
and es pecially no t in the Carou sel. It's pretty unsta ble, and it just doesn't allow me to roll
my speed through ther e like I need to th rough all the turns." There we re changes for th e
race, but not enough to be com pe titive, on ly eno ugh to be in the mix furt he r down the
field. "It was a pretty okay race be cause I had somebody to chase. I was pushing pretty
hard. That's just all she got ." Yates said the team had bee n co ncentrating on the GSXRI000 Superb ike d uring te sting. "We' ll get it stra ightened o ut."
iia••
308
Ben Attard
8th
The newest member of the Aust ralian invasion, Brisbane's Ben
Attard wasn't at full strength for his first visit to Infineo n Raceway. Food poisoning struck o n Friday, and his e nergy level was
down most of the weekend. The race pace was quicker than
expected, and he was up to the task, going over a second q uicker than he'd qualified. That pushed him up nea r fellow co untryman Damo n Buckmaster, whom he' d pass on th e ninth lap to take ove r eighth place, his
finishing position . "I finallygo t a bit of energy this afternoon, just basically rode as hard as I
co uld. Kept my focus . It was good . I got in behind Buckmaster and followed him for a few
laps and passed him and Tony Me iring at the same time. I was making progres s o n [Aaron]
Yates, but I ran o ut of steam. I was catc hing Yates , and it must have been Roger [Hayden].
The last quarter of the race I just ran ou t of puff, and that was it."
i Briefly...
Continued from page 43
was a goo d bit easier to get aroun d the
track, so I was happ y with that."
According to Dunlop's pre- race one handout
showing what t ires each of its factory riders
were using, both Mat Mladinand Aaron
Yates used hard fron ts and medium-hard
rears while the Ho nda boys, Ben Bostro m,
Miguel Duhame l and jake Ze mke, all used
hard fronts and medium-compound rears . In
years past, a bumpier, more slippery Infineon
allowed riders to use softer compound tires ,
Dunlop said. The faster track with better
adhesion forced the riders to use harder
compound tires than in the past.
Mat Mladin was impressed with Jak e
Zemke after racing with him for the first
time on Saturday. "I think th is is the first
time I've been be hind him on the racetrack
and checki ng ou t what he does," Mladin
said. "jake's riding we ll, and he shou ld pat
himself on the back. Be ing o n a Superbike,
he 's do ne a goo d jo b fo r sure, and he's not
doing anyth ing silly and he's lea rning. He's
,
solid."
Mladin wasn 't impressed with the start
line at Infineon, with the polesitter on the
inside and not having a straight run through
tum one. "I had to battle to get around the
first co mer because the pole position here
is absolutely ludicrou s," Mladin said on Saturday. "Y
ou're on pole , and the guy who is
in fourth is about four feet beh ind you so if
you call that an advantage over fourth
place, I ce rtainly don 't . And he 's looking at a
stra ight line into tum two, and you 're look ing at a conc rete wa ll, so if that's po le position, then I just don 't get it. From what I
saw from just there is that this should be a
three-person fron t row, three-three-threethree, and everyone should be moved to
the right, because that first comer co uld get
really ugly It's a disadvantage to have pole .
.
It's much more of an advantage to be third
or fourth place going up that hill. Aaron
[Yates] got a good start, and he's a race r
like everyone else, and he wanted a tight
line to get up the hill first, then I saw someone else coming from the outside. If I
would have held it on, I wou ld have taken
out a few people. Pole position is unbelievable at this place. I sho uldn't have gotten it it's not worth a point ,"
Geoff May was hopi ng to get a second
Suzuki GSX-RlooO afte r Fontana so that
he 'd have a ded icated Superbike and a dedicated Superstock bike , but tha t didn't
come to fruition. At least not yet . "I'm still
at one," May said on Saturday. "I tired to
get another one, but my credit's not good
right now. I'm kind of overextended, so I'm
seeking other means to get a bike. The
good thing about go ing back and forth
between the Superbike and the Superstock
is that I go back and forth between 16.S
and 17-inch tires , and the bike is working
awesome with the 17-inch setup and not so
with the 16.S. So I can go, 'O kay, th is is why
it' s working with the 17s and apply that to
the 16.Ss and make the 16.Ss work. I think
tomorrow will be a second faster a lap •
average ."
www.cyclenews.com
A mainstream pre ssman asked Mladin in the
Saturday postrace pres s conference if he still
go t excited about w inning. The no-nonsense Mladin loo ked him in the eye and said,
·Yep ." After what seemed like foreve r,
Mladin added: "l'rn excited , mate. Some
people show their excitement, and I enjoy it
in different ways . We did a good job today,
but we're four races into an IB-race championsh ip, and there's nothing to jump up and
down about."
The Attack Kaw asaki team had its best
Superbike weekend of the year at Infineon
with a battered and bruised josh Hayes ending up sixth on Saturday and seventh on Sunday. "This team's full expectations is to get up
there in the middle of the factory guys,"
Hayes said on Saturday. "I know they can do
it. They did it last year with jason [Pridmore].
I know it's a different motorcycle, but it's the
same team . These guys know how to do it,
and that's wha t the goal is within the team.
Richard won't settle for anything less. The
moto rcycle is a good motorcycle. We got a
little closer this moming, we were fifth in
qualifying and I'm the hold back th is week,
end , really.The bike is working really we ll.
We'll come back even better at Barber."
Always a man who rises to the occasion , it
was fitting that Miguel Duhamel gave the
Honda CBR IOOORR its first win in a
National Superbike race . And he did so in
fro nt of several of Honda's top brass fro m
japan . " ro u know I'm going to MotoGP next
week so... obviously, it's very impo rtant,"
Duhame l joked before getting se rious . "I'm
very happy and pleased to be able to bring
the Honda. They have been supporting me
for so long. I was just racing. but after the
fact , it's obv iously a great feeling to be able
to do that today. I'm just really, really
pleased ."
Eric Bostr om returns to the catwalk in a
New York fashion show next week. The
Ducat i Austin rider, last seen as Austin Powers in the VIR Pit Daddy competition two
years ago, has been invited to take part in
two shows on Monday, May 10. The shows
will be toward the end of a very busy week.
Bostrom and the Ducati Austin team are
testing at Pikes Peak Inte rnational Raceway
on Wednesday and Th ursday, May S·6 . Then
he takes a re d-eye to New York o n Friday
night, arriving first thing Saturday morning .
From New York he' ll be driven in a
motorhome to two Ducati open houses in
Pennsylvania before being d riven back to
New York City, where he'll be until leaving
for the next rou nd of the AMA Chevrolet
Superbi ke Championship the weekend of
May 14-16.
Kawasaki team manager Mike Preston said
it was too soon to say whether Kawasaki
would be in the Superbike class in 2OOS. "I'd
like to know what they 're going to do ," Preston said of the AMA "It' s pretty sketchy.·
He also wondered what the other teams
were doing. If they did race Superbikes, "We
would eliminate something, I wou ld have to
th ink or look to Attack [Racing] to do something."
CYCLE NEWS • MAY 12, 2004
45
