Cycle News - Archive Issues - 2000's

AMA Repsol Lubricants Superstock Series By HENNY RAy ABRAMS J. NELSON AND TOM Rills PHOTOS BY BRIAN t wasn't a very clever thing to try. Roger Lee Hayden knew that. He also knew it was his only hope. So, on the final run to the checkered flag, after one of the most intense fights of the season, and entering the most dangerous corner on the AMA calendar, Roger Lee turned off his brain. It worked. In a showcase of the future of American road racing, Hayden beat Graves Motorsports Yamaha's Jason DiSalvo to the flag by half a wheel's width, officially .009 of a second, in a thrilling Repsol Lubricants Superstock final at Road Atlanta. "It was pretty scary, to be honest," Hayden said after his first big-bike win in a race that featured 18 lead changes. "I thought for sure I was going to go on the grass or something, because I was pushing the front all the way down the hill, and it's got a big bump. You know, I was in it that deep, I might as well just went ahead and went for it." "He wanted it more today, for sure," DiSalvo added. Lost for a moment in the excitement was Yoshimura Suzuki's Aaron Yates. The Georgian earned the 2005 Superstock title by finishing ninth in front of a crowd filled with family and friends. "I'd like to dedicate this whole season, I this championship, this number-one plate to Vincent [Haskovec - the Team M4 EMGO Suzuki rider who was paralyzed in a racing incident at Infineon Raceway and who returned to the paddock at Road Atlanta]," Yates said. "He won the first round [Daytona], and it looked like he was going to be a tough competitor out there racing week in and out. He got taken out of the series. We missed the competition and wished he was with us." With the IOOOcc Superstock title, Yates becomes the first rider to win production titles in three classes. His first crown was the 750cc Superstock in 1996, and he won the 2002 600cc Supersport title. This was a two-rider race from very early on, though others hung tough for more than half the race. DiSalvo led lap one, then it was Hayden for two laps before DiSalvo took it back for three more. Early on, a pattern developed in the race. Hayden would make his pass in turn one, then lead through much of the road course, with DiSalvo using a power advantage to draft by and pass hard on the brakes in the near-dead-stop turn- 10 chicane. "I think it was a little bit of a power thing," DiSalvo said. The team put in a much faster, fresh 30 SEPTEMBER 14,2005 • CYCLE NEWS motor just before the race. "I told the guys when they put it in, I was like, 'Well, the first motor doesn't really wheelie at all on the back straight and the second motor the bike wants to loop out. I think we'll go with the second one,''' he said. Hayden's view was that was that "you've got make it up somewhere else." On lap seven, Hayden was back in front, and first to fourth was covered by .785 of a second. Michael Jordan Motorsports' Steve Rapp was fourth in front of Graves Motorsports Yamaha's Damon Buckmaster. Behind the lead foursome came another quartet, this one with Team M4 EMGO Suzuki's Michael Barnes leading teammate Geoff May, Lion Racing's John Haner and Yates. Having won the four previous races, Yates came to Atlanta with a 21-point lead on DiSalvo. It would take very little effort and no return of Saturday's bad luck, when he crashed on the penultimate lap of the Superbike race, to earn the title. It would also take patience and racing with riders he wasn't familiar with. "I was like, 'Man, I got to get around these folks.' I wanted to go," Yates said. "I wanted to push it off in there in the corner hard and stuff it out through somebody and get by him, but I just didn't want to risk tucking the front. I mean, I fell yesterday, so that definitely was present in my mind." DiSalvo was in front at the line for laps nine and 10, the pair getting away now. So it went until the very last lap. Hayden led at the stripe and held through the infield, with DiSalvo setting up to draft into 10, as he'd done repeatedly. DiSalvo ducked to the inside, stopped safe, turned and fired out. At that moment, Hayden knew what he had to do. He'd done it earlier in the race, but it wasn't fun. "It wasn't really a plan, it was just like a freak thing," Hayden said. "I was going to do anything to win." "Wasn't really expecting the last lap down the hill on the outside," DiSalvo said. "Just kind of took me by surprise. But it was a good finish. I didn't know who won when I crossed the stripe." May took third from Buckmaster three laps from the end, finishing about two seconds back. He'd made a setup change prior to the race to control a front-end problem. '~t midrace, it just started coming to me," May said after his' second podium of the year. "I just put my head down, and I was able to slide the thing and just control the slide instead of getting all out of shape on me and be smooth. And lap times got back down to close to 24s again."

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