Cycle News

VOL. 50 ISSUE 28 JULY 16, 2013 riders up front in third when nine laps in he caught a false neutral coming off the long back straightaway and ran off the track all the way across a wide gravel trap and then had some trouble getting back to the racetrack. He dropped back, but worked his way back to another eighth. After a weekend of rotten luck all Hayden could say was, "Laguna can't come soon enough." One of the remarkable aspects of the Mid-Ohio Superbike doubleheader was the fact that EBR factory racers Geoff May and Aaron Yates not only finished fifth and sixth, respectively, in both races, but they were wheel to wheel at the finish. KTM's Chris Fillmore ran with the EBR's of May and Yates in both races, but ended up finishing in seventh behind them in both rounds. Fillmore was one of the riders who suffered with blistered tires on Saturday. He also rode with a banged-up elbow after suffering a 120 mph get off at the end of the back straight earlier in the weekend. Larry Pegram was Ohio's big hope to finally get a home state Superbike winner at the Buckeye Superbike National. But man did it ever go wrong for the Ohioan. He had tire issues throughout the weekend and ended up ninth on Saturday. That was his worst finish of the year, but then came P83 Briefly... la One class. Motocrosser turned Superbike racer Steve Wise won the Superbike race that year, Dave Emde scored victory in the 250 Grand Prix and Jimmy Adamo won the Battle of the Twins race. Cameron Beaubier moved out of a tie with Danny Eslick and now has sole possession of third-place on the all-time Daytona SportBike wins list. With his pair of wins at Mid-Ohio, Beaubier now has 13-career DSB wins. Martin Cardenas is the all-time class wins leader with 24 wins. Josh Herrin is second with 14. The knock on Josh Herrin as a Superbike rider is that he can be blazingly fast while following someone like his teammate Josh Hayes, but that when he's in front or riding alone he's inconsistent with wildly varying lines. Herrin thought he made major strides in that area at Mid-Ohio. His work to improve his riding technique included running lap after lap alone during practice and qualifying this weekend in order to improve his clear-track pace. The work paid off. Herrin proved strong with good lap times even after Hayes pulled ahead and eliminated Herrin's ability to gauge off his teammate's rear tire. "I've been working hard to improve in that area," Herrin said of racing without a rabbit in front of him. "I think I've made some good progress. Obviously, I still have some way to go, but I think I'll continue to get better at running my own pace consistently. Hopefully, it won't be something I learned too late in the season." continued on next page

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