Cycle News - Archive Issues - 2000's

than I did during the test tvvo months a8o is an achievement for myself and for the team a5 well." Barnes got the holeshot on the sec- ond start and "decided instead of swinging out, I kind of hung down low and protected my line and I think maybe Ben lspies] had the same idea. He just got kind of tangled up with my tail section or something. I iust felt something underoeath my left foot, Bruised my ankle a tiny bit and bent my rear-set." Spies said he didn't know what hap- pened, but thought Barnes might have turned into him. 'After forgettin8 about that in a couple of corners, I just had to have my head down and try not to think about what was going on behind," Barnes said. 'And I knew Jamie was coming and he's been putting down some fast laps all weekend. llust did my best to hold him off as long as I could and hang with him as long as I could. After that lwas iust trying to manage my position and hang onto second place as long as I could." Eslick slotted into third when l'lay left the track to serve his penalry. He never challenged Barnes, but did get some mid-race pressure from Attack Kawasaki's Ben Attard before the Australian slowed off the pace. "lt's pretty hard to describe. lt means a lot," a beaming Eslick said before thanking hir mother for driving him around the country. "l've been working a lot of years for this." Attard finished fourth with I''lay coming back from his stop-and-go to finish fifth. C]{ CauroRNra SPEEDwaY FoNTANA, CAUEoRNTA REsurrs: APRI] 30, 2006 {RouNo 3} UPCOMING ROUNDS: Round 4 - Sonomo, Colifornio, Moy 2l Round 5 - Elkhorl Loke, Wisconsin, June 4 Briefly... My Owtrt Rnce Ben Attard Attack Kawasaki's Ben Attard got a terrible start, then nearly got cau8ht up in the Spies' melee in turn one- That put him in a hole that he had to dig himself out of, only with the wrong tire. Attard realized about three-quar- ters of the way throuSh the flrsa lap that he had the wrong tire. "We just hadn't scrubbed it in properly yet and then another lap went by, and the,, normaliy work by then and it was like I was on a awo-lap old Q. lt was iust way 4th Place too hard. ltuess it was me and my crew chiet's mistake and I paid for it. That was a podium I think, it really should have been mine. lcan'. take anything away from the guys that got on the podium." Damon Buckmaster Damon Buckmaster was running in eighth on the fifth lap when he was taken out by Cory West. Buckmaster was still upritht when West went up the inside of him in the double left. "Just took me out. My leathers didn t even touch the ground, it was that bad," he said. Iwas actually lying on top of his bike and my bike was on rop of me and we iust skidded like a hundred yards. I was just sitting there." The impact broke Buckmaster's handlebaq preventing him from continuinS. Even DNF if he had continued, it would have beeh a lont race for guckmaster "Our chain was iumpinS the sprocket. We were going backwards. lt was jumping really, really bad." Ben Spies Yoshimura Suzuki's Ben Spies ended the day slid- ing on his stomach along the banking in turn one. The fall came on the first lap of the restart after he ran up on Team M4 El'4GO Suzuki's l*lichael Earnes- "l don't really know what happened," Spies said after watching a relevision replay. "l saw the replay end I'm sure Barney didn't mean to. but it seemed like when he hit the brakes he really turned the thinS and I was on line with everybody else and I tried to turn in a little bit, but lgot a brake lever stuck on his hip and went down. lt didn't alfecr me. I scraped my finger up a lktle bit and that s it. lt s no bit deal." Spies DNF shook olf the incident to win his second Superbike race of the weekend, and fourth in a row, later in the afternoon. Geoff May 'Apparently, the AMA liked my start so much they wanted me to come in a do it again for them," Team l',l4 EMGO Suzuki's Geoff May joked about his stop'and-go penalty. May was docked for jumping the original start, which didn't last a lap, and was forced to serve the stop and Eo on the res!ar!. Yeah, we appealed it. we thou8ht, it's a complete new race, its irrelevan( the old saart and they said no, the rule book says if you 8et a penaltl 5th Place before a red flag, tha! you have to serve that penalty on a restart even thouSh it's a completely new .ace. I feel so bad for the team. man, my mechanics have been work- in8 so hard. lfeel like we had one there. We could have been on the box, easy on the box, maybe even a win." l4ay dropped lrom third to loth when he served his penalty, then recovered to finish fifth. "l iust feel really bad- lt was a stupid mistake and it was totally my fault. I felr lchris Peris] jump and I flinched because he went and it was on the one, and it was gettinS ready to go green any second and I saw him flinch so I iust... and I knew it insrantly- ConJinued lrorn poge 45 instead, foors oat SefiiE r€ady for lr{ineon. "l w6 readiB Roaerx on de u/ay l|ere and I was readilu abo{tt E i€aio ForEeca tfie Team Horia rnoto

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