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/128627
th a n m e a nd th at he wasn 't go ing to b e there a t th e e nd ," Mladin s ai d . " Ho n e s t ly , that 's ex ac t ly what I t h ought whe n h e c a me und ern e ath me becaus e all du ring pra ctice when he wa s o n the s a me tire he had no c ha nce to o ut b rake m e there , o r be close enough to o utbra ke me th ere. As it turn s out, he had tire p rob lems and fell ba c k quite quickly ." As it turns out, Ha yden didn 't have a diffe rent tire and the te a m ha d n 't even ma de any d ra s t ic changes to th e Re SI . It was s im ply a m att e r of it b e in g race ti me, an d Ha y den is a ra c e r - throug h a nd thro ug h . He was m a king wha t he ha d wo rk . On th e n inth la p , Hay den tried a sim ilar p a ss on Bostrom , but he drifte d wid e a n d Bo s t ro m wa s a bl e t o [Above) Eric Bostrom (32) had nothing to lose at Pikes Peak. He gambled on a different rear compound ti re than the majority of the fi el d and it pa id off, tak ing him to his fi rst AMA Superblke w in in two years. [Left) W ith seven la ps to go , Aaron Ya tes 12 0) made a pa ss on t ea m mate M ladin 11) in the last comer, with hopes of catchin g le a de r Eric Bostrom. It was t oo little t oo late, and Yate s slo w ed at th e fi nish to let Mladin finish second, and gain some va lu able championship points. come back u nd e rn e a t h the Hon d a . O n the 14th lap , he tr ied the move again and wa s s ucce ssfu l. Hayden wou ld lead for 18 more la ps before finally wea ring his tire to th e point where Dunlop tire tech Jim Allen said he 'd nev er see n o n e worn to before. Ha yden's gallant effort was for nothing and he was forced to fade ba ckwa rds . Naturally , he was disappointed. " Everybody k n o w s what hap pened , " Ha yden said . "I though t · everything was go ing so good. I'd pulled out a gap on Er ic [Bostrom] and I looked back and we had a gap t o Mat [Mladinj . I th ought , ' T h is is p erfe ct. ' I was pu shing so hard . All week I strugg led and I was gi ving it 110 perc ent. I was ju st push ing and pushi ng and we had a pro bl em. I th ink everybody kn ows what hap pened. It' s reall y frustrating . I thoug ht today we were going to get right ba ck up and h a ve a shot at the champ ionsh ip. I'm defi nitely bummed out for me and the team because we 've waste d a lot of ha rd wo rk a nd time to come this close a nd have a prob lem thi s late in the yea r whe n things we re look ing good. " Bostrom went past, Mladin went past, Yates went past. Eventually , Ha c king wo uld a lso go by. With Hayden strugg ling , it figured that th e only person who would really put it on the line to run with Bostrom was Yat e s . On t he 41 st lap , Ya t e s stuffed it under Mladin in th e fin al corner and made an attempt to catch Bostrom . He couldn 't. Bostrom had m ade th e perfec t tire cho ice a nd he 'd run the perfect race. "It ' s a real compl iment to win because Mat IMlad in], Aa ron [Yates] and Nick [Hayden] have been doing a such a good job all year," Bostrom said . "It feels really good to g et a chance, yo u know. It's been a long season for us being off the top of the box , but it felt like we we re still mak ing progress." "I got a good sta rt and had to mus c le my way throug h the first turn ," Bostrom expla ined . "Mat and I were rea lly close. It was pretty cool. After a while, Nicky came by and it s e emed like he was setting a pretty good pa ce so I was pretty co nte nt to follow him. Mat took two sho ts at me and cou ld n't stick it, so that felt pretty It was Mladin's nint h po d ium finis h of th e season - o ut of 10 ra c es . Now it s eem s h igh ly like ly th at he will repeat as the se rie s c ha m pio n whe n ra ci ng resumes o n Octobe r first at Willow Springs. Once aga in , Mladin pr oved to be the master at doing exactly wh at he ne eded to do to be s uc cessful. "T h e plan toda y wa s th at I wa s just g oing to t ry and be in fron t of Nic k y [Ha yd e n ], wh e th er that was first a nd fifth or 10 t h and l l th ," Mladin sa id. "We figured if we could take t he amo u nt of p oi n t s we h a d coming in t o this race to the n e xt race , we 'd be pretty comfo rta b le . That's all we had to do . The first 30 laps we were pushing hard and Nicky and Eric both had a lot more dr ive gr ip than I did , so 1 gu ess they used a differ ent tire. I'm pr etty s ure Eric did a nd I wasn 't sure what Nicky used. It wasn 't re all y somet hi n g we h ad to good beca use I did n't know actually how mu ch speed we had d own the back straight. I was rea lly milk ing the th ing. O ur tire ch o ic e turned out good and it was a bit of a ro ll of the dice. We d idn 't have much to lose lik e these guys , so it made our job less stressful. " When Yates realized he co u ld n' t c a tc h Bostrom, he slowed e nough to allow h is te a m m a te to finish second. Jamie Hacking 192) fought a spinning rear tire for most of the race , fi ni shing fi ve seconds adrift of Yates [201 In fourth. cue I e n e _ s • A U G UST 23 , 2000 7