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Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/128387
Repsol Lubricants Superstock Series
had moved around Rapp on the third
lap),
Damon
Buckmaster,
jason
Pridmore and Michael Barnes, who
rounded out the top 10.
Yates turned his quickest lap on lap six,
and it looked like he might be able to pull
away from Tommy, as he turned a 1:27.682
to Tommy's I:27.965. Yates remained dearly in control from laps six through nine,
albeit with a determined Tommy nipping at
his heels and the top fIVe still covered by a
mere 1.3 seconds.
By the end of lap nine, Tommy was starting to make up ground on Yates, while
DiSalvo had moved around Roger Lee.
Holden started to lose just a little bit of
ground to the top four. Tommy made
another run at Yates in tum I I and once
again made the move stick to lead across
the stripe at the end of 10 laps. Yates slipped
into low I:28-second lap times, while
Tommy continued to pound out high I:27s
and take command of the race. Haner was
still in sixth position but was starting to take
little chunks of time out of his teammate
Holden, slowly reeling him in.
Tommy looked determined and put his
head down and ran away, leading laps 10
through 14. By the 15th lap, the leaders
were already getting deep into lapped traffIC, while Tommy had eked out almost a
one-second lead over Yates and looked like
he had broken away from the chasing
group.
Then it all went wrong for Tommy. As he
tried to pass a lapped rider on the outside
between turns three and four, he clipped his
brake lever on the other rider, sending
Tommy out onto the rumble strip and into
the gravel trap at high speed. Hayden
crashed into the air fence, breaking his
hand, which required a trip to the trackside
rnedical center for attention.
"I was coming off three, and I had a good
run and got to the outside of the guy, and
thinking back now, I should've shut off and
dove back under him," Hayden said. "I
knew there was three laps to go, and I had
a second and a half. I thought I was pretty
much home free, because I had enough tire
to run that pace - I'd just done my quickest
lap. I was just trying to be aggressive, and
you have to take chances sometimes. I've
done that dozens of times and slipped
through, but this time I ran out of track. If it
had been somewhere else, I maybe could
have gotten back on the track, but once I
grit there, it was 90 degrees, and there was
no slOWing down. It was just a bad deal."
Yates was back in command and
appeared to have a decent gap over DiSalvo
with two laps to go, but DiSalvo wasn't giving up that easily, and he made one last push
to see if he could catch Yates. Yates made a
mistake exiting tum I I just before he started the white-flag lap, letting DiSalvo gain
some ground on him.
Tires were an issue by this point, and
Roger Lee, Holden and Haner had fallen off
the leading duo's pace. Haner was allover
his teammate Holden but was running out
of time, and the Uon Racing duo was now
two seconds behind Roger Lee in third.
"I didn't really have any problems,"
Roger Lee said. "They just had a little extra
the last two laps that I didn't have. I kind of
had used my tire a little bit more. I was having trouble getting off the last comer the last
couple of laps and was really spinning up a
lot. These guys just turned up the wick the
last two laps and were better than me."
The banIe for the lead went down to the
stripe, with DiSalvo right on Yates' tail
through the infield sections of the track, but
he was unable to do anything about it. It
looked like it was going to go down to the
last corner on the final lap. DiSalvo gave it
everything he had and went as deep as possible into the final corner. Yates, however,
wasn't fooled, and he let DiSalvo make the
pass and then squared the young New
Yorker up on the exit, and it was drag race
to the stripe - a drag race that Yates won.
"I was pretty strong into [tum] I I,"
DiSalvo said, "so I would have liked to get
the pass done earlier, because I think I could
have held Aaron [Yates] off into I I. The
whole race, Iwas going in there pretty deep
and still managing to get the bike turned and
get the bike on the throttle. I would have
liked to get by a little bit earlier, because I
knew that if I left it until the last corner; that
the easiest time to pass someone back is
right after they just passed you. At the time,
it was all I had, so I did what I could with it
[the pass attempt]."
Yates took his third victory of the season
by .228 seconds over DiSalvo, with Roger
Lee another two seconds back.
"I was struggling a bit getting into there
[tum II]," Yates said. "The whole last lap, I
could hear him [DiSalvo] allover me. Iknew
38 JJlY 20, 2005 • CYCLE NEWS
he was going to try to make a run on me
somewhere, and probably tum I I - that's
the last chance. I did alii could to stay to the
left in tum I I, and as soon as I went to the
right side of the track, he shot by me. I just
got the bike turned and tucked inside him as
close as I could and brought the Suzuki
home for the win."
Holden held off his teammate Haner to
secure fourth, with Rapp, Gobert,
Buckmaster, Corona Extra Suzuki's Brent
George, and Hooters Suzuki's jimmy
Moore rounding out the top 10.
Yates leads the championship on 227
points, with DiSalvo second with 217.
Rapp's Sixth-place finish and Tommy
Hayden's crash promoted the jordan Suzuki
rider to third in the championship, ahead of
Tommy. Holden moves into fifth, ahead of
the injured jamie Hacking, with teammate
Haner in seventh and Roger Lee Hayden in
eighth, defending champion Gobert in ninth,
CN
and Lee Acree in 10m.
MAzDA RACEWAY ....GUNA SECA
MoNTIREY, CAuFOINIA
REsuus: JULY 10,2005 (ROUND 7
Of
101
I. !Won""'" (Suz); L jason ();SaM>
(Yam); 3. Roger Lee H¥len (!