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Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/1542395
AMA 5up€rbik€ Championship lnfineon Rocewoy American Honda s lake Zemke started out fast on Sat- urda, runninS third trom lapt twotoll b€fore brake problems sent him backward. 'lust seems like the brakes glazed over a bit and I iust didn't have the stop- pint power I needed gettint in rhe corners and couldn't get in there like lwas earlier in the race, and iust kind offaded back from there," Zemke said. 'l felt like I (ould get through the corners okay once I got in there, it was iust I couldn'tget into the corners. I iust kind ofjust ended up going backward there.' He landed in eighth place, after podiums in his Previ- ous wvo races- "Early on we had the pace to run with the tuys for third. I would like to think we would have be€n at least a challenSe for those tuys up there and have a four- rider mce for tha.d instead of three, but that's the way it goes - some days are 8ood, some days are bad. This was a bad one." On Sunday Zemke didn't have any trip: "So I couldnt get off the corners and we had changed the shock and it also affected 8oin8 into the corners as well. I just couldn't get much ofanything done today," he said. "First lap out, warm-up lap, I could tell it wasn't quite the trip I had yesterday. Sometimes it takes a lap or two to Bet the tires where they're gripping to their full potential. lt just never. ever came in. k was kind of bad right from the get-go. I think it was more our setting that was bad because we had the same tir€ we had yeste.day and, shoot, I drove riSht by a couple of guys eart in the race, where toda),, that wasn t toing to happen. They were driving by me instead." I 55 een Bostrom 6th/7th Place hrts Unlimited Ducati's Ben Bostrom had two problems on Saturday, "Grip and steerinS. Does Mv Owru Rnce 98 ;ate Zemke 8th/8th Place ,a Saturday didn't begin well for Yoshimura Suzuki's Aaron Yates. Yates crashed in Super- stock practice, re- iniuring the 5houl- der he hurt at Daytona. The race didn't start well either. The clutch grabbed and everyone went b, and his Yosh reamrnates split. He 8ot involved in a three-way light with Arnerican Honda's Miguel Duhamel and hrts Unlimited Ducati's Neil Hodgson in the second half of Saturday's Superbike race, once American Hondis Jake Zemke began to fall back with front-brake troubles. Yates took Duhamel for third between turns two and three on the l&h lap when Duhamel ran wide to the left. "He 8ot in there and he picked up the 8as, and his bike stepped out pretty big and it kind of set him out wide a little," he said- "l didn't downshift that time through there, and iust kind ofrolled throuSh there and solid on the gas, Ju$, kind ol this is my chance l'm goinS to to for it." Duhamel stalked him until the 26th of 28 lap6 when he wem up the inside in the Turn 7A right onto the back straight. "l just tot in there a little further than I needed to," Yates said. "The tires were greasy, I couldrit quite get it stopped enough before I really leaned h in like I needed to. Being cautious, just Eot offthe line a litde bit and Higuelwas able to turn it inside." Yates got a better start than he had on Saturday, bu! in $e lirst f€w laps couldn't 8et on the gas as hard as he wanted. "The thinS was spinninS up. And I just had no grip. lt took a few laps lor the tires to come in. Everybody got back by me on the first lap. I settled in behind Jake fzemke] and then Neil [Hodgson] and they staned pulling away, and llnally was able to get by Jake, and my bike sras leeling really good - pushed a. hard as could to close the gap up on those guys." I OO xeil Hodgson mean that's everythint you want, That's pretty much it. I rode a bike I hadn't ridden all weekend because basically we only had one session on the track. So each time we've been out there we've been on a different bike. I'm iust doing it and Sambling because I want to learn eveD/thing at the beginnint of the season. The second half of the season I want to have these great results. I could iust kind of race what I thought was decent thii rnominS and to out and ride." Bostrom's hst lap was his last, just because he got more used to the setup. 'lust went out there and put our head down and I couldnt undeEtand how we were losint so much time on the exir. Then toward the end I just start rid- ing the front tire a little bit harder. The bike seemed to like that a bit. Neil lHodgson] and l, our Superbikes are com- pletely different right now. But I don't want to just copy him and go with that. We're trying to 80 our direction. I exPect l'll be copying him pretty soon-" Sunday he had "Some 8rip, some steerinS, lvhich is good; we went about a second a lap quicker today, so that was kind ofcool," he said about the motoraycle with a setup he'd never raced. "Their fast laps came in the b€Binning, our fast laps in the end," Bostrom said every race is a test. "lt gets tough on the brain. You start the race and you've got be really gung-ho those lirst few laps, and you're a bit tentative b€cause you don't know the bike." package was - it just wasn't package that I could race, what I mean?" Pans Unlimit- ed Ducati's Neil HodSson asked. "l could ride around. The ont two places you can overtake, I was slow throuSh, so there was nothing I could do. So you iust son ol sit wait- ing, hoping someone makes a mistake. I passed rake fzemkel because he had a little wheelie and I set him and it allowed me to pass him. Other than that, it's really ha.d to pass peo- ple." On top ofwhich he was havinS a hard time with his gearbox. Aa.on '/ates though he hit Hodgson, but the Eng- lishman said no. "lt was close, but he didn't hit me. I had problems with the bloody backshifting; sometimes it iust locks afid it just locked at the end of the straiSlt and as soor as it lock, you're iust a passenSer and I just went really wide, really wide - like completely offthe track- Luckily, k's all tar- mac out there, so you can go wide, and he just came under- neath." Hodgson was at the tail end of the three-way battl€ Ior the final podium spot for the second halfofthe race, but couldn't put a tlove on Yates or Duhamel. Hod8son finished 29 seconds behind the winner on Saturday - on Sunday it wa5 nine. "lt wes so nice to se€ the leaders," he said ''Just can't go {aster on our bike the first five laps. lt iust feels so heavy and it just doesn't do an)'thin8 you want to do. Always later on in the race. the bike feels a lot beater when there's no fuel left. lt's a bi8 heavy bike. So, like, that's as hard as I can go allthrouSh the race." Hodgson passed Kawasaki's Tommy Hayden on the 2lst of 28 laps to take fourth and had a notion of a podium finish, setting out for American Honda's Miguel Duhamel. He finished less than a second back in fourth, equalint his season besr. 22 fommy Hayden 7 th/6th Place **;"::=:!: Kawasaki's Tommy Hayden linished seventh on Saturday after makinS some fixes that didn't He made a run at Pans Unlimit- ed Ducati's B€n Bostrom at the 1.., E I that sound like I tm mrrch? I end, but came up about .4 ofa second short. "we have some handlinS issues and that's it. We iust w€ren t goint near fast enough. I'm not sure what was 8oint on with Jake [Zemke], but he was comin8 back to us and Ben [Bostrom] tot held up in some traffic, and I was able to get back at him. I was on him the last couple of laps, bu! he was goinS pretty good, and there wasn t any way I could have 8ot by." Hayden improved his position by one on Sunday and challented for a podium for nearly rhe flrst half of the race. lt was the l3th lap that Duhamel came past. Hodgson eventually followed, a5 did Yates. "lt started off all ritht and I iusa kind of fell back a5 the race went on," Hayden s3id. "The bike started not workinS as well as the race went on, and I couldn't ride it like I wanted to. There was a couple close calls out there with lappers. I about had a guy come into me over in [turn] four and a couple other spots. That s always the scary part. The chantes we made to the bjke today helped, and we were going a lot faster at the bednning ofthe race. But as che tire went off, the bike iust wasn't workint as well, and I couldn't keep the pace." 15 Steve Rapp 9thl9th Place Jordan SLrzuki's Steve Rapp ended the first lap in nirth, and was in the same spot at the end oI Satur- day's Superbike race. He rode by himself after what he called a "crap- py start, but I made it up in tum two passing people. I was on gen gostrom for *le lirst five or six laps and I kind of kept him right therc at four or fNe bike lenSths, and that helped me get away from the people behind me. After that I had [Larry] PeSram behind me for about eight or nine lap6, then I started getting a bigger Eap on my pit board every lap, so I knew I had pulled away lrom him. I was riding hard the whole time and the tire feh pretty good." Rapp started Sun- day by dertroying his race bike, the one he uses in both Supe6tock and Superbike, "so I had to run my back-up bike ih the Supemock race, and it didn't really work very well. I came in and made some changes between that and the Supertike race and they really rnade a big difrerence. I got off to a prefty good start and it got better, I was able to get by Jake [Holden] at the end." 43 ;ason Pridmorc | lthll lth Ptace "l just can't get comfortable on the bike," Jordan Suzuki's lason Pridmore said. "We've been tryin8 stuff, and we lost AMA SUPIERBIK€ Ro.tttds 517 ,.dy 2O-2r. 2@6 2O Aaron Yates 4thlSth Place -{ \- )rl sth/4th Place l (7 , IL I 'iL- L 32 MAY3l,2006 . CYCLE NEws