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/128376
jason Pridmore had - in motorcycle terms a "big one" at Barber on his superstock bike on Friday, the Jordan Motorsports Suzuki rider crashing his GSX-RIOOO in one of the faster sections of the track. "I made a b0oboo," Pridmore said. "I highsided, and it spit me over the front, and Iwas on top of the fairing. My feet were flailing and I had no feel. Then I augured into the ground. 1he bike stood itself back up and slammed into the tire wall. I thought Iwas going to slide right under it, but I didn't. I saw stars, but when I saw the bike, it was detached; there were two separate pieces of motorcycle." Fortunately, Pridmore was uninjured, except for a stiff neck. "I rang my bell pretty good," he said. Unfortunately, Pridmore suffered a similar fate on Sunday morning on his superstock bike, the jordan Motorsports rider losing the front end and slamming his head to the ground for the second time on the weekend. Pridmore was taken to the hospital for precautionary reasons, with the staff there slated to do an MRI. "He hit his ribs pretty good, and they're worried about internal problems," Rich Alexander said. "He also knocked himself out, and that's the second time this weekend he's hit his head." Later on Sunday, the team reported that Pridmore may end up being hospitalized all week. "Nothing is broken, but there's some internal stuff they're worried about," team manager Kenny Abbott said on Sunday afternoon. 'Worse case scenario, he has to be here a week. We'll go to Fontana with Steve [Rapp] and continue our program until jason is better. You may see Rapp on the superbike." Mat Mladin earned the 39th pole of his AMA SJ!perbike career on a cloudy Saturday morning, his I:25.047 lap bettering his 2-year-okl lap record at Barber Motorsports Park. "This motorcycle is a lot better than the one that lap record was got with:' Mladin said. "Even with limited time, we should be able to go quicker than what we did before. We did, just a lithe bit - but I'm still about half a second short of what we did in the test. But we had limited time and I had to be a little bit careful out there - it's a lithe bit greasy compared to what we had at the test. 1he conditions weren't ideal at all, but it's good to get the [championship] point. That's all that matters." Mladin and crew are continuing in their efforts to make an already good motorcycle a bit better. "1he motorcycle [is] a work in progress, and it always is," Mladin said. "Suzuki stepped up with a really good motorcycle this year. It's just better than what we had, It's a brand-new bike, and we should be doing a better job on it. I'm not riding any different the motorcycle is just a lot better. The motorcycle suits the rules and it shows what they [Suzukij can do when they want to build a motorcycle with the same rules as everybocly else. The chassis is a lithe improved, but the engine is a massive improvement. It accelerates hard, it keeps revving and that's something we didn't have last year. I keep saying it, but it's because of the rules. They were changed so late [last year] that Suzuki didn't have any time to do anything about it." ~