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Doyrorlo B3orh, rl
Round
r
Mcr.h
r r, 2006
AMA 5up€Pbik€
Championship
TH
,9
P
ESS
t
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I
I
v
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,
sct+00L
Ilnere
s a
very
gooo
cnance
I that one dav vounp Ben Sores
I will win an AMA"Suoerbrke
I .r." ar Davtona lnrernalional
I Sp""a*uy.
when
that
day
comes. odds are
he'll look back and
thank his old teammate
l'4at l'4ladin.
On a bright and sunny Saturday
morn-
ing, Spies learned a
painful, yet
valoable
lesson, on how to
win at Daytona, and
it
was
Mladin
doing
the teaching. The day
after turning 34
years
old,
professor
Mladin used a
perfect
draft-to-the-flag
Daytona straregy to
win his fifth AMA
Superbike race at Daytona, and
his third
in
succession.
On the
final lap, Mladin did
the
unthinkable
-
he led coming out of the
chicane, a move that
usually spells doom
at Daytona, But
wait a second ... sudden-
ly he slowed on the exit and the unsus-
pecting
Spies shot
pasr.
Game
over. Now
it was
the
professor
who was
back
rn
charge
of the student. the six-time Al'4A
Superbike Champion
feeding the
power
back on his Yoshimura Suzuki GSX-R1000
and
quickly pulling
into Spies' draft. Then
it was
iust
a matter of
waiting for the
mos! opportune
time to
pull
out of that
draft and
make
the
pass.
He did so, the
final move coming on the tri-oval as
he
passed
Spies at the
last
second to
take the
win by
iust
0.032 of a second.
"With
about
five to
go,
lfigured that
was what lwas
going
to have to do,"
Mladin said after averaging a
record
107.056
mph in winning the race.
"l
cer-
tainly didn't
want to slow up
goinS into
the
chicane and try to let him by there
-
because
then
ir
becomes a bit
silly
Soing
around the banking. Everyone doesn't
know
who wants to take the lead. I
iust
rried to catch
him
by
surprise a little bit,
and make sure he had a bit of momentum
when he went
past
so he couldn't really
check up
-
and
if he
did, then
I would've
been
gone
anyway, lt worked well this
time,
That'll
80
in his memory bank.
lt
probably
won't work the same next
year.
We'll
come
up with another thing,
maybe.''
Though he was obviously disappointed
on the
ceol-down lap, Spies
was com-
posed
in the
post-race
press
conference.
He knew
he'd been snookered by the
master. and he'd
learned from
it.
t
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20 MARcHzz,z@6
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cYcLE
NEWS
T
E
AMA sUP€RBIK€
t
Bv Paul Clnnurxrns
PHoros
BY HENNY RAY ABnai s
i
Mot
Mlodin
(l
)
leods
reommore Ben Spiei
(I
I
),
Neil Hodgson
(lO0).
fommy
Hoyden
(22)
ond
rhe rerr of lhe Superbikc ficld
inlo th6 lnt rnolionol Horrcrhoe for the
firit
tims ot Dqyiono.
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