AMA Chevrolet U.S. Superbike Series
he record boo ks will show that Yoshimura Suzuki's Mat Mladin and Erion Hon da's Jake Ze mke
split wins at the Mid-Oh io Sports Car Cou rse in
July of 2004. What it w on't show is wh at a giant
step Mladin took t oward w inning his fift h AMA
Superbike Championship over the course of the w eekend, his
1-3 tally pulling him well clear of his rivals - both of w hom suffered setbacks of some kind in each of the two races.
Mladin came into Mid-Oh io with a slender IO-point lead on
Am erican Ho nda's Miguel D uhamel and with 19 points on
Zemke. He left with a 2 1-point lead over Zemke and a wh opping 44-point lead on Duhamel, the man who suffered most
over the weekend.
In Saturday's race, Zemke battled a bad front tire to finish a
distant fifth. On Sunday it was D uhamel's tum to flounder; and
.
the result was devastating to his championship hopes, as the
French-Canadian crashed out of the race on the I Ith lap when
the engine on his CBRI OOORR failed.
When they weren't blundering. however, the two Honda
riders we re spectacular, especiallyZemke. O n Sunday the class
.
rookie set a blistering pace that no one else could match and
stonned away to a 12.7-second win over Ame rican Honda's
T
20
AUGUST 4,2004 • C YC LE N EWS
(Left) Afterwinning
on Saturday, Mladin
generously shared
his victory champagne with a race
fan . (Above) Jake Zemke won Sundays Superbike race. The
win, combined with Duhamel's disastrous result, vaulted
Zemke to second place in the series stondings.
