Cycle News - Archive Issues - 2000's

--~---------------- AMA SUPERBIKE Round 3 May 1,2005 ~ Briefly... AMA Pro Honda Oils Supersport Championship Series Conrinued from poge 29 HACK~ With arguably the best crew in the paddock, Mat Mladin's nonfinish in Saturday'S Superbike race when his clutch went south brought up an interesting question: When was the last time Mladin endured a nontire-related mechanical problem? The answer: Brainerd in 2002. That translates into 44 races without a mechanical problem for Mladin's Peter Doyle-led crew. Not a bad record. Larry Pegram suffered an electrical failure on his Hotbodies Honda CBR I000 in Saturday's Superbike race, but he bounced back to finish 10th in race two. "Jimmy [Filice] helped us out a lot this weekend coaching us, especially in getting the bike set up better," Pegram said. "I ran as fast in Sunday's race as I did in qualifying, so we're making strides. I had hip-replacement surgery in December to fix an injury from '93. I'm still recovering from that, and the surgery has helped my riding a lot. I'd lost a lot of motion, but now it's nearly all back, so my riding is better than it's been in a long time." Pegram is now 12th in points with 72 By SCOTT ROUSSEAU PHOTOS BY HENNY RAy ABRAMS D uring the 17-lap Pro Honda Oils Supersport Championship Series final at California Speedway, Team Yamaha's Jamie Hacking said that he was able to breathe easy in the certainty of a win at only one time during the race. "When the checkered flag dropped," Hacking joked after the race. In actuality, however, the 33-year-old Hacking will likely leave round three of the Supersport series brimming with confidence after scoring his second consecutive victory over reigning class champion Tommy Hayden. Hacking earned the 19th AMA National road race win of his career - his 12th in Supersport - by a comfortable 4.248-second margin over Hayden, who finished second, another two seconds ahead of his brother and Team Kawasaki stablemate Roger Lee Hayden. "It is very rare when you get breathing room in this class," Hacking said. "I saw my board going up to plus three, but I saw a bunch of lappers in front of me, so you never know what is going to happen. I mean, three seconds can be gone in a matter of no time. I didn't think anything was in the bag until we got across the start/finish line." Maybe not, but Hacking sure appeared to have it in the bag well before then. Tommy actually got the holeshot and led the first three laps, with Hacking, Aaron Gobert and Jason DiSalvo stacked in the mix just ahead of Roger Lee, while Yoshimura Suzuki's Ben Spies tagged on to the back of the factory freight train in sixth. The order shuffled temporarily on lap four when an aggressive DiSalvo made his way past Hacking to briefly challenge Tommy for the lead. Both men were able to dispense of DiSalvo by turn nine, although Hacking later expressed displeasure with his teammate's tactics for the second week in a row. "I had a good drive on Tommy there [into five], and I tried to outbrake Tommy, and obviously it wasn't going to happen, so I wasn't going to do it," Hacking said. "I was just waiting for the right moment, and the next thing I know, here comes DiSalvo up the inside of me. I got aggravated there for a little bit, but then I just blew it off. I knew how good I was, and I knew I could get back around him, so it wasn't a big deal. That's it. That's all I've got to say." Hacking only had to wait one more lap for the right time to make a pass for the lead. It came on the brakes into the turns 12-13 chicane. Hacking slipped under Hayden there and then upped the pace, towing Hayden with him, the two breaking free of the rest for good by lap seven. But unlike at Daytona, there was no motoring back past Hacking by Tommy on the long California Speedway front straight. Instead, Hacking held his own (Above) Jamie Hacking won his second straight Supersport final, this one coming fairly easily at California Speedway. Tommy Hayden (hidden) finished second. (Bottom) Roger Lee Hayden (95) managed to hold off Jason DiSalvo (40) for third place. there - maybe even stretched the gap as much as on the gas-and-go sections on the infield. That gap was 1.248 seconds before Hacking uncorked the fastest lap of the race, a I:27.180 on lap 14. Hacking's performance was testament to the work of his crew after his YZF-R6 appeared to be more than a little behind the eight ball in the horsepower department at the beginning of the season. "Definitely, I think we have improved from the beginning of the season, otherwise I wouldn't be able to keep up with those guys," Hacking said. "ObViously, they've got some very good motorcycles, but we've got a good motorcycle, too. I'm able to come off the corner with them, but the [top-end] horsepower has - a number that matches his racing number. Multi-time 250cc GP Series winner Jimmy Filice and his Wife, Jamie, watched as their son Justin had his best-ever road race result, the youngster riding his Hotbodies Honda to lOth in the Formula Xtreme race. "I had a very good start and probably passed a full row or so right off the line," Justin Filice said. ''As the race progressed, I saw fIVe guys in front of me, and two were pulling away. So I got by a few of them and went after the others. I was running four seconds faster in the race than I had in qualifying. I had nothing to chase until the race, so Ithink those riders inspired me and pulled me along." Filice finished 20th in Supersport. Attack Kawasaki's Ben Attard was disqualified from the Lockhart-Phillips USA Formula Xtreme race at Califomia Speedway after his ZX-6RR failed to meet the minimum allowable weight in postqualifying tech inspection. As a policy, the AHA does not release the weight of the motorcycle, but Kawasaki team manager Mike Preston said it was two pounds underweight. Attard had qualified third fastest, behind the American Hondas of Jake Zemke and Miguel Duhamel. The disqualification did not affect his entry in the Pro Honda Oils Supersport class, in which he finished seventh. Some days it seems that Yamaha's Damon Buckmaster can't catch a break. Case in point: Buckmaster crashed in turn one during Superstock practice because his front tire siid on a tear-off, he believes. And he's not the only one. During Friday's riders meeting, AMA road race manager Ron Barrick cautioned riders to be careful where they discarded their tear-offs. Buckmaster was only lightly injured in the crash, spraining his ankle and suffering contusions on his right forearm. American Honda's Miguel Duhamel made the 2.3B-mile California Speedway racetrack safer. The veteran made a suggestion Conrinued on poge 32 CYCLE NEWS. MAY 11, 2005 31

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