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t oto.rports Po?k hen Yoshimura Suzuki's Ben Spies won the inaugural AMA Super- bike race at the brand- new Miller Motorsports zemke had hinted that a non-Suzuki win was possible in Saturday's race when he and Parts Unlimited Ducati's Ben Bostrom had shown the speed to run with the top two Suzukis. But it didn't end well for Zemke, as he crashed out of the race after dropping from second to fourth with an off-track excu.sion- He'd remount to finish eighth, but he'd thrown away any chance of stopping rhe Sr.rzukis. That left the two Yoshimura bikes to hold off Bostrom, with Spies winninS for the seventh time on the season. On Sunday, Mladin was the stronger of the lwo Suzukis, but after a red flag caused a restart of the race after just seven laps, Zemke steadily moved his way up to the back of the Suzuki pair and then shot past them both. From there, l4ladin kept him honest while Spies dropped off the pace, but it wasn't enough to stoP Zemke from scoring the victory - the third AMA Superbike win of his career. "lt's been a year and a half of hard work, and the Suys never stopped work- ing, and that's what paid off today," Zemke said. ''Nobody's lost their drive or their motivation during the whole process. There were some long week- 50. ls, so I don't think we had anything for him, The onlygood thinE that came out of it was rhat he won and lYat [l-4ladin] did- n't. The points would've been a little clos- er then. I4y team worked really hard. I worked as hard as I could. lt just wasn't there today. The only good thing is that we minimized the points: actually, we gained one, lgLress, over the weekend. But it was a good weekend for us. l'm a little frustrated with today, but that's how it hapPens sometimes." Behind the two Suzukis in terms of overall points scored was Zemke, his eighth-place finish on Saturday and his win on Sunday Siving him 59 points from the weekend - and the confldence that the Suzukis can be beaten. Well, at least on a rrack with good traction and with Power- zapping altitude, though there may not be many of those tracks left on the schedule. "We still have a lot more work to do," Zemke admitted after his win. "The track here definitely suits my style, and I think it also helps some of the deficiencies that we still have in the motorcycle, being that it's a more European-st/le circuit - fast and flowing. That's kind of the stuff I like, where you've got to link four corners together and really be on your marks to make it all work. And beinS that it is fast and flowing, our bike, where we're strug- gling, has been getting the rhing to tum right in the middle of the corner. where most of the other tracks here in America, it's really stop-and-go, and you're almost turning l80s in every corner. and that's where we're struggling a liftle bit." Kawasaki's Tommy Hayden and Pans Unlimited Ducati's Neil Hodgson both earned 52 points over the course of the weekend. Hayden's came via consistent flfth-place finishes: Hodgson's came from Park on Saturday, Suzuki's win streak in the class was upped to 14 straight. But on the following day, American Hondas.lake Zemke put a stop to that streak, the Honda CBRl000RR-mounted Californian giving hope to not only his team but everT factory team in the paddock. Suzuki had flnally been beaten. As if the l4-race win streak wasn't enough, Honda's winless drought was even worse. The last time a Honda won an AMA Superbike race was on October 10,2004, when Miguel Duhamel swept the season-ending doubleheader at Virgania lnternational Raceway - that's 20 months of frustration. And it's been even longer than that for Zemke, who hadn't won since.luly 25, 2004, at l'4id-Ohio. But all that is history now thanks to Zemke's hard-charging win over Yoshimura Suzuki's Mat lvlladin in the sec- ond of two races at the immaculate Miller Motorsports Park. I6 JUNE 28. 2006 CYCLE NEWS AMA sUP€RBIKE Rounds r O-r I tune l7-lA, 2()()6 D D Ir fte I slll t I E E I I I I I m IG rh $ I E ITI illrq n. -i I yl} I #F ilpt r !L ld'1+$.' {'\6}ta .\dr '@ , \d \t a t al | !lr.!. tt at I The firit-ever AIUA Superbike roce ot the new Miller lvlotorsporrs Pork gprr under woy on lhe first o{ two &yr of oction during lhe doublchcoder weekend. NMA Stpqlfgniei I I I -1. , i-.'{, 3+ L*-' ,,8Y. t:Fr \. I r-t ends last year, and this year's been really good. Up until Saturday's race, there'd been a Honda on the box every race this season. We've come a long way in a short amgunt of time. lt's definitely wonh allthe hard effort that we put in to have a pack- age like we had this whole weekend - that we c:m 8o out there and race heads-uP with these guys and ride the wheels off the thing- And that's what we were able to do today, and that was a great race-'' Honda win or not, it was probably Spies who came out of Utah with the most. The young Texan held off Mladin to win on Saturday, and then settled for a comfortable third on Sunday. He also earned pole position and rhe chamPi onship point that goes with it and left Utah after earning 66 points- 14ladin, with his pair of seconds, also earned 66 points, but two more races aae now gone from the schedule and Spies has the same 2l - point lead that he came in with. Mission accomplished, if your name is Ben Spies. Spies rruy have even come away with more had ir not been for the red flag in Sunday's race. At the time, he'd opened up a sizable lead after Bostrom crashed out of thear battle, but it evaporated with the red flag and gave everyone else a second chance. "You don't want to know what I was thinking," Spies said in regard ro the red flag. "But it was just one of those .ough days. We've kind of been caught out a couple of times by red flags. and we were comfortable in the first race, comfortable with everything lust 8oing, gorn8,8oing. And I came in and went back out, and just had a couple of problems - I couldn't get it done. Jake [Zemke] was riding awe- some. He was there right off the bat. Even if we would've gone as good as we did rhe first leg, he said he was doinS t a -V o ++ l t -i.-' I E€rr Saties wsn SoturJoy'r Superbikc rccc. his revcnth viaory ol lte seosoo. ba. \