Cycle News

VOL. 50 ISSUE 25 JUNE 25, 2013 Josh Hayes (1) leads his teammate Josh Herrin (2), Roger Lee Hayden (54), Martin Cardenas (36), Danny Eslick (23) and Larry Pegram (72) in the second of two Superbike races at Barber Motorsports Park. PER Standings second penalty. And then something even rarer happened – he was actually passed in a race for goodness sakes and both of his wins were in question right up to the final lap, thanks to a resurgent Roger Lee Hayden. If you choose to look at it the way Hayes does, this wasn't a typical dominating Josh Hayes race weekend. But look at the box score – it reads, Josh Hayes: pole point, lap leader points and two wins. That, my friends, is a perfect weekend. As a result of his Barber performance, Hayes moved from fourth place in the series standings, and 34 points out of the series lead, to second and just 10 points down to Cardenas. Almost nothing in racing is inevitable, but Hayes becoming the new series leader at the upcoming round at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course next month is about as close to a sure thing as you'll find in the sport. Saturday's race had a chaotic beginning. Riders claimed a longer than normal interval before the start lights went out and AMA officials reported that five riders jumped the start, including Hayes and Hayden. That gave those five riders (Larry Pegram, Chris Ulrich and Huntley Nash were the other offenders) a fivesecond penalty. Thanks in part to his early jump, Hayden led a four-rider breakaway early followed by Cardenas, Herrin and Hayes. Hayes said knowing he jumped the start he fell back in the first turn and gave up positions hoping there wouldn't be a stop-andgo penalty assessed. But once things settled in it was Hayes making his way to the front and to the lead five laps in. Even though he was leading on the track, however, the timing screens showed Cardenas as the leader, due to the five-second penalty. Hayes P65 Briefly... With his pole at Barber, Josh Hayes moved past Ben Spies to earn sole possession of second on the all-time AMA Superbike polewins list. Hayes now has 25-career poles, moving past Spies who had 24 poles. Category leader Mat Mladin has what is probably an unbreakable record of 63 AMA Superbike poles. Josh Hayes kept his perfect qualifying record for 2013 intact, with his pole win at Barber Motorsports Park. Riding his factory Monster Energy/Graves Yamaha R1, Hayes turned in a time of 1:25.383, well off the 2008 track record of 1:23.664 set by Mat Mladin. Nevertheless Hayes was over a half-second faster than Roger Lee Hayden (1:25.910), who qualified second on the National Guard/ Jordan Suzuki GSXR1000. Series leader Martin Cardenas (1:25.984) qualified third on the strength of the time he turned in Friday's session. He was the only rider on the front row not improving his time in Saturday's session. Rounding out the front row was Hayes' teammate Josh Herrin (1:26.273). "It was a good session," said Hayes. "It started off well. I felt better when I got out rolling around the racetrack. We started on a tire from yesterday [Friday] because we wanted to get race distance on it. It was good to do a decent string of 25.7s, and 25.9s with race distance on the tire. We came in and got a fresh [set] and were able to get in a really fast lap and stay in the mid-25s. We made a shock change. At first I wasn't too sure about it, but the lap times seem to say it's good." A continued on next page

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