VOL. 50 ISSUE 22 JUNE 4, 2013
he'd be able to break the draft on
Road America's long straights.
"It's tough to get away here,"
he said. "We'll have to see how
the race plays out, but I'm not
sure I'll be able to get away in the
race."
On Saturday it was close early
between Beaubier and Gagne,
but on the fourth lap Beaubier
put his head down and was not
only getting into the turns deeper than Gagne, but was getting
considerably better drives out as
well. He cruised to his second
straight win in the class by 2.693
seconds over Gagne.
There were two great battles
inside the top 10. One was for
the final podium spot with training
mates JD Beach and Jake Lewis,
then there was a four-way battle
for fifth between Garrett Gerloff, Bobby Fong, James Rispoli
and Dane Westby. The quartet
shuffled positions back and forth
several times with Gerloff turning
a near perfect last half lap to secure the position. In the fight for
the final podium spot Lewis tried,
but couldn't quite get in position
to draft Beach to the flag.
Beaubier said he was running
a strategic race Saturday, saving
his tires for a late-race charge.
"JD [Beach] got a crazy holeshot and then he made a little
mistake down into the left-hander
and I got by him," Beaubier said
of the start. "I got by him and tried
to save my tires for a little bit, but I
knew Jake [Gagne] was right be-
P47
Briefly...
Josh Hayes now has 35-career
AMA Superbike wins. He's second
on the all-time win list to Mat Mladin, who has 82.
Superbike fans have become accustomed to large margins of victory for Josh Hayes. That's why Sunday's margin of .818 of a second
over Martin Cardenas gave new
hopes for a competitive championship. That was the narrowest margin of victory for Hayes since he
edged out Roger Lee Hayden by
.224 of a second at the Mid-Ohio
Sports Car Course last July.
Many riders complained of lack of
traction with the newer Americanmade Dunlop racing tires. Most
notably Josh Hayes said he felt
there was a lack of grip in the rear
and he doesn't have the same confidence on the new tire as he had
on the previous generation of Dunlop racing rubber. Chris Fillmore
also said he felt a dramatic difference in the tires from last year to
this.
Josh Herrin was one rider who
may have found a solution that at
least worked for him. His crew
dropped the tire pressure. "The
Dunlop was a lot better to me today
[Sunday] than it was yesterday," he
explained. "We lowered the pressure in my rear tire by a significant
amount. I felt like it helped a lot. I
felt a lot more confidence on it coming out of the corners. A lot of times
Martin's [Cardenas] bike looked
like it was pumping coming out and
mine was real smooth, so that was
really good." Some in the media
center after the press conference
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