Cycle News - Archive Issues - 2000's

AMA Superbike Champion Mat Mladin Emily Jean abviously has the run of the spacious family room as evident by the large supply of toys. fied on a 21.6. My quickest lap in the race was a high 22. The race in Atlanta, on the back straightaway in the kink, I was half throttle on every lap, because I don't want to stress the tire too much. We just know where the heat is being generated. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure that out. So in the race this year, I was half throttle. As soon as I came down the back straight and started tipping off, I just started rolling out. I just hold it until I get down, as soon as I get up straight again, on the brakes, that's it. It's easy to see on the footage. early in the season that he was using some form of illegal traction control. I asked him if the traction control was going to be better in 2006. '" hope so," he said with a smile that didn't last long. "This is the thing that everyone keeps talking about, the bike and the cheating and the traction control, and that's where it pisses me off," he said. "Our bike this year is so much better than last year's bike that it's ridiculous. And last year I did a 22.1 on a qualifying tire. But in the race, the race was run at the same pace as this was better everywhere we went. Take the rider out of the equation. The motorcycle is better. It's not my fault the other guys backed up. Or the Ducati guys couldn't go as quick, or the Honda guys went slower. My bike was better. And if I ride it hard, it should go faster." Mladin admits he doesn't know what's legal and what's not, but has faith in his crew. "I honestly don't know the rulebook well enough. I didn't know you couldn't say 'shit' - that cost you five grand. I don't know what you can have or what you can't have. All I know is if I want smoke to come off the rear tire, I can make smoke come off the rear tire. Obviously traction control doesn't work if you can do that." More impressive than Mladin's Road Atlanta success, was the previous weekend at Virginia International Raceway. Mladin arrived at VIR with a nine-point lead on teammate Ben Spies. Mladin had eight wins, Spies one. The gap after the first race at Mid-Ohio, the previous round, was 37 points. Then came Mladin's skittering by teammate Yates, and the gap entering Virginia was now single digits. All season, Mladin had been worried about his clutch. No amount of innovation made a difference, and the downside showed itself when the clutch gave up while he was leading at Fontana. "It was a mysterious problem and it was mysterious to me because I didn't know what it was," Mladin said. With the four most crucial races to run, at VIR and Road Atlanta, Mladin was still worried, still looking for an answer. "Those four races at the end of the year, if I would have started good and proper, I'm 99 percent [sure that] I wouldn't have a problem. But that one percent was too much of a chance to take, for me. The start, I know if I have a problem, I have time to catch up." Worried about clutch problems that had dogged him all year, Mladin started cautiously in each of Saturday's three starts at VIR to win by 3.7 seconds. Sunday's race was a demonstration of domination. The margin of victory was over I I seconds. It might have been more. "I was hoping for IS," Mladin said. "But I was hoping for 15 seconds and I think I had it close to 14 with a few to go, but then I caught a big bunch of lappers and I got stuck and lost a lot of time. And second place didn't catch as much before the end of the race. So I ended up "It's home, of course, there's no doubt about it," he says. "But you know, I enjoy my time in America. I love America, I really do. I love being there. I just enjoy my time there a lot, a real lot. And if it wasn't for family, it's possible, whether I'd stay there. But in the end, we'll probably come home." I mean, I come out of turn seven in that sprint race with a fairly decent gap on [Ben] Spies, but [by] the time we got into the braking area, he was right in back of me again. In race two, that's what you have to do. Do what you have to do. "It should be pinned. I'm hard on tires. There's no doubt about it. I generate a lot of heat. But I generate decent lap times as well. So the two obViOUSly correlate somewhere." Mladin was so dominant that word began circulating 42 JANUARY 4,2006 • CYCLE NEWS year, essentially. There were a few faster laps this year. The race was run at the same pace. Spies and [Aaron] Yates and those guys, were running the same pace that I won the race in front of Miguel [Duhamel] last year. If you're getting the most out of the 2005 bike, you are not running the same pace as the 2004 bike. There is no chance. None. So how these guy's lap times come back up and then they accuse other people of cheating, that's the thing that pisses me off. The tires are better, the bike is night and day. The lap times should be better. And it

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