Cycle News - Archive Issues - 2000's

''We're definitely making progress from last year, but those two guys were out in front and they were pretty far gone,'' he said. "We still have a ways to go, that's for sure. The boys are working hard at it." Then came his teammate Duhamel. who passed Kawasaki's Tommy Hayden on the final lap to get fourth. Hayden was fifth, with Hodgson sixth. Yoshimura Suzuki's Aaron Yates came seventh after crashing, and restartinS on the 2lst lap. Spies'work continued on Sunday and netted him his third Superbike win. The Texan took the lead when Mladin lost the front end while braking for the downhill- hairpin-left turn five, on the flfth lap. "The first few laps I was Soing hard, but I wasn't doing anything silly, and that lap I stafted getting a bit silly and wanted to try and get it rocking and rolling and made a mistake." Mladin said. The Suzuki GSX-R1000 only reluctant- ly fired after an extended push by a cor- ner worker. The clutch lever was bent and there was gravel in the bodywork, but other than that it was line. "l iust made a mistake," he said. And he was in last place. Then came the Hayden-Kerker inci- dent on lap 2l and lYladin started over, now in l4th. Spies iumped away from the field at the start of the eightJap sprint and was gone. He had a second after one lap, nearly two reconds after two, and built it to a 2.835 margin of victory after backing down at the end. "l just put my head down as hard as I could the first couple of laps, and tried not to make any mistakes, and then I eased it up the last few laps," he said. Mladin was up to fifth by the end ofthe second lap, though at a gap to the trio of Duhamel-Hayden-Yates. He might have made a pass on the final lap, but Yates made ir easier with his very late-braking maneuver, "Felt I was pretty much enough beside him - he saw me there," Yates said. "l was on the brakes, and the thing was kind of stepped out, and then it was really hop- ping - trying to Eet it straight up and down and Bet it stopped. He iust turned and come right across. lgot into him. Thankfully, it wasn't any worse than it Yates said he "wasn't tryinS to do noth- ing hairball," but Hayden disagreed. ''l was in a little battle with Miguel [Duhamel] and then tried to put my head down and Yates ran over me down there in the bottom," he said. Neither went down, bu! Hayden got the worst of it. "By the time I turned around I was sev- enth," he said. "l put my head down to salvage what lcould. The Ducati guys were just ahead of me, but it was goinS to be hard to make up." Meanwhile, l''lladin scooted past and into third, aiminS for Duhamel iust ahead- Duhamel thought Mladin was a lap behind after his eadier crash, and was surprised when he came at him in the museum turn. "l was looking at him, going. 'Dude what are you doing?' I thought he was a lap down," Duhamel said. Mladin squeaked by in the left-hander on to the front straight, but Duhamel got the better drive to the line. The mar8in was 0.050 of a second. "l know when he went full throftle and I went full throttle; his bike, fortunately it missed a bit," Duhamel said. 'l think they're havin8 a problem with their fuel iniection - the bike was popping a lot. And it went pop, pop, pop. And when it did that, I just went by him. And after that it was a heat race all the way to the line." l'4ladin couldn't be upset with third, even though second was in his sights. "When you win a lot of races, most of the time the red flag goes against you, but today it really helped," he said. "By the looks of how things were going before the red flag, we maybe would've got up to eighth. Third's better than eighth. More points. Now he's [Spies] got the points lead, so now he knows, he has to sleep with it. Now he knows what it's going to feel like." With three of 19 rounds completed, Spies leads Mladin, 107-99, Duhamel sis third with 88. cll BArs.r ilororsPofis ParK BtR itNGHArtr, AraEArtra REsuLrs: ARr. 22-23, 2@6 Conrinsed lrcm pdge t7 pretty fun." Hale said he'd race the XB9R again at California Speedway next week. The XBRR won't arrive before the May 2l round at ln{in€on Raceway, the team w:s told. The XBRR was beint tested at a Championship Cup Series event at Road America the same weekend as Barber. "l'd like to get on it, see how it is," Hale said of the XBRR. I'tichael Baines was easing his way back to speed followint the knee iniury he suf- fered in Daytona. Barnes was splifting his ridint duties with stand-in Kurtis Roberts. Roberts wes riding the Team M4 EMGO Suzuki in Forml,la Xtreme while Barnes rode the Superspon GSX-R600. Bames has history ofquick healing and this iniury bare- b/ slowed him down. "The rehab's going good," Barnes saad. "The [right] leg's strong. There's no swelling." The problem wasn't with the knee. but with the skin. which had to be pulled together to clore the surSical scar- The Barber round marked the llrst time that Yoshimura Suzuki's Mat Mladin flew his family and some team members to a race in his new plane, a Pilatus PC-12. ln the Execu(ive conliguration, the single-engine turboprop seats eight..loining Mladin and his instructor/team member Lou Dubois, were his wif€,.lanine, 2 l/2-y€ar-old daugh- ter Emily Jeafl, his sister. Melissa, hrs moth- er, Carole and her companion, Terry Newby. lnsurance regulations prohibit Mladin from tlying the plane alone until he ha5 more hours. Mich he won't have until late rn 2007. he said. So he hired Dubois to co-pilot to the AMA races while he tains exp€rience, and also to help with team duties. The beamint dad sad that Emily Jean could already identiry the six most important gauSes in the cockpit. The website for the rordan Suzuki team, www.23race.com, is drawing 100,000 unique visitoB a day since it went Iive on February 15, according to team coordina- tor Kenn),, Abbott. The team's link is fea- tured prominently on the sports home pate of AOL.com, http://sports.aol.com/racing, one of the tearn's sponsors, "lt drives tick- ets, it drives interest, and, by the way, l,lichael Jordan's involved," Abbott said. Abbott said the link was well placed to take advantate of the motorsports demoSraphic. "I4ostly we made that deal because it bene- fit5 the sport and when the sport benefits, we all benefit," he sajd. "We can leverage the popularity ofthe team for the whole sport." Abbott said that Hanes, the under- wear compariy that's irnother of the team s sponsors, was going to do a television com- mercial featuring the race team. ]ordan arrived at Barber Sunday morning. He hosted theJordan All-American Classic, a high-school basketball game at New York's Madison Square Garden. on Saturday night. Reprol Honda's Nicky Hayden wes a guest ofJordan's in New York, and then flew to Birmintham in the basketbaJl let- end's private iet. Earlier, he rnet with mem- bers ofthe Jordan brand to discuss possible future endeavors. Hayden was wearing an Emesto Fonseca T-shirt in support ofthe injured Team Honda rider. Hayden had to leave Tuesday for the followint weekend's Conrinted on poge ?3 SUPERBIKE QUALIIYING l. Ben 5pi6 (l:24.810)i 2 l'larhew l'lladin (1i24 942)i 3. Tomhy Hayden (l'25.670):1. Fote.lee H,)dh (l'15 792r:5 A.rcnYar6 (l:?6.069); 6. MEud Duhnd {l:?6.142)i 7. Jake zemke (l:26.lrl):8. Neil Hodssn (l:26.205); 9- Ben Bostrom ( I :26.572)r I 0. Joh. Haoer ( I r27.043)r I I . l6on Pridmore ll:27.316):12. Larn/ P%ram (l:27.a70)r ll. Stew iapp {l:27.915)i 1,1. Pd., Picotte (l:27.919Ji l5.l&6 Holden (l:28.216): 16.l6on Cunir (l:28.287): 17. Fmcis Hartin (l:28.a20): 18. Cli.t f1

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