Cycle News

VOL. 50 ISSUE 31 AUGUST 6, 2013 ting into braking battles, or mixing it up with the oft-unpredictable Herrin, etc., but it's all bunk. Hayes wanted to take the other riders to the woodshed. Had it worked, it would have been brilliant and probably sealed the championship, but it backfired. Bad for Hayes, good for the rest of us. Now we get to watch and see if the crafty old vet can pull off what would become his signature championship. One where he came back from a big deficit - not once, but twice. Maybe Hayes has Herrin and Martin Cardenas, who now lead him in the championship, exactly where he wants them. With all of the talk of Hayes' unsuccessful tactics and going from 11 points in the series lead to 16 points down and in third, the other thing that happened is that Herrin and Cardenas won races. It should be noted that by all rights Hayden should have won Sunday's race, but his bike failed him. Herrin did it straight up on Saturday. Hayes, meanwhile, gambled a bit by going with a hard tire saying, "I knew I could do high 50s on the hard tire. I didn't think any of those other guys would be able to do 51-flat more than three or four laps on the medium. The heat may have helped that medium tire hang in there a little longer than I thought it would." So when the medium tires held up, Herrin and Hayden had the rear grip to drive out of the corners. Hayes didn't. That set up an epic last-lap battle where Herrin and Hayden, both bold riders, gave no quarter, cut and thrust, tried out-braking and out cornering each other for the final three miles. In the end, Herrin's Yamaha was more settled; Hayden's Suzuki nervous and twitchy. Herrin crossed the line just .093 of a second ahead of Hayden. Martin Cardenas won Sunday's second Superbike race for his second victory of the season. P87 Briefly... Three points was how many Josh Hayes earned Sunday by finishing 18th after his crash. In the past many top runners simply abandon the race after crashing out of the lead, but Hayes never gave up. In the end, who knows if that three points will make a difference in the championship, but has wasn't about to leave any points on the table. "The one thing I knew I couldn't sleep with," Hayes said. "I can live with crashing out trying to win a race. If the bike was capable of going around the racetrack I have enough respect for my team and the guys who build the bike and put all the hard work into it, I'd better get everything out of it I possibly can. When I rode endurance years ago, once you're out in the race and you hear something knocking or whatever, it's not going to do you any good to pull in. You try to figure out how to finish the race. As long as I wasn't unsafe on the racetrack I was going to try to finish the race. The first two laps I was like, 'Why am I even doing this? I'm already a lap down.' And I saw P20, P19, P18, they started counting down and there was still six laps to go and I'm like, 'You know what a couple more could go before this is over. It's a hot greasy day. They might give me a few more spots, so I need to just stick this out." Josh Herrin and Martin Cardenas are slowly climbing the ladder of all-time AMA Superbike wins list. Both Herrin and Cardenas took their third career AMA Superbike victories at Miller this weekend. They join other three-time race winners that include Ben Bostrom, Pascal Picotte, Colin Edwards, Troy Corser, Steve McLaughlin and Reg Pridmore.

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