Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles
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Mladin, alone in seventh after getting the best of Bostrom, the Ducati rider rhinking he was going to black out as he struggled iust to finish the race- Bostrom had started strong, running se.ond and keeping Spies in sight until he started a steady fade backward. By the end of the lace he was seventh and 22 seconds behind Spies, and he would be transported to the medical center for an lV after suffering in the heat. American Honda's Jake Zemke had a rough weekend, iust one race after stop- ping Suzuki's win streak by winning the second of two races at the Miller Motorsports Park doubleheader. Zemke had trouble finding the setup on the new (and bumpy!) Laguna pavement, and he could muster no befter than ei8hth, finish- ing l0 seconds ahead of Hichael Jordan Motorcports' Jason Pridmore, the vete.an well clear of his teammate Steve Rapp, who rounded out the top l0 finishers. Kawasaki's Roger Lee Hayden ended up I lth in his return to the Superbike class - his broken lower leg now healed enough for him to take part in two classes again. Despite the rough conditions, there wasn't much attrition, and all of the top men finished the race. It took two starts to ge! rhe race going when fwe midpack riders went down in turn two on the opening lap of the first attempt at Setting the race started. Duhamel had led that one off the line and into two, but things would change for the second part. ln that one, Spies would get the iump offthe line Irom his spot on pole position, And from there, he was never headed. He gapped the field by I .2 seconds on the opening lap, had two seconds on them after two laps, 2.8 seconds after three laps... and it would go on. He would lead by as much as four seconds, with Bostrom getting it back to three seconds at one point before he started to fade. Spies app€ared to have it all under con- trol, the Texan checking his gap to the pursuers and also keeping an eye on Mladin's progress. Bostrom. however, thought he had a chance to win at this point, saying later that the Ducati was the bike to beat on the weekend, his new tractjon control device helpinS his cause. The heat, however, would drive him to the brink of nearly pulling out ofthe race. (See "lYy Own Race.") "On my pit board. I had plus to whoev- er was right behind me and plus to wher- ever he [Mladin] was," Spies said. "l could tell in the middle of the race that he was going a little bit backwards. There's a scoreboard coming out of l0 that you can see, and I was looking to see where he was and doing the points gap in my head. I staned making mistakes and quit doing that. I rode as hard as I could, but they fthe team and Dunlop] definitely made it a whole lot easier this weekend." With Spies immediately taking neady all of the suspense out of the race for the lead, the battle for second is what held the large crowd's attention. For l5 of the 28 laps, that spot was held by Bostrom, When Bostrom's pace started to drop, Tommy Hayden took up the slack and grabbed the second-place spot after working his way around Duhamel with an impressive pass going into tum two. "l''ly strongest part was on the brakes," Hayden said. "My bike was real- ly good on the brakes today- I kind of sized it up a few times and went out and got beside him [Duhamel]. lt seemed like my tire was better than his as the race went on, and lgot a really good run out of the last turn. As we were going over the hill, he kind ofpinched ofi and atherthan losing my momentum, I iust kind of car- ried it around the outside of him. \Men he broke, I went around him, pretty much. My bike was really good on the brakes, and that's where I was making most of my time up. That was the best place for me to go ahead and get by." Duhamel staned to drop off after that, and that allowed the charging Hodgson to go by, the Brit strugglinS to 8et up to speed on cold tires. Hodgson had been a distant sixh at the end of the Urst lap, but he put his head down and caught the frve riders batding for second. He managed to get four of them, but couldn't quite get Hayden, despite his k efforB late in the race. "lt was good, really," Hodgson said. "Tommy rode a really good ftrce, to be honest, He got past Ben [Bostrom] and pulled a little bit of a gap. I chased him down and got on him, but I lost the front really badly with three laps to go. l'd been losing it all through the race, but I lost it really, really bad. I haven't had a podium all year, and l'll take third place - it's been a tough weekend, and I needed some- thing to build on. lf I'd crashed, the team would have been really disappointed with me. so I used a bit oI intelligence for the first time in my life." Hodgson had used traction control for the first time, and he said it made an instant difference. "l feel really pleased," Hodgson said. "Hopefully we can move on from here. We're usinS traction control, and it defi- niteb/ seems to help, I've got to say. We only had an hour's practice, so it wasn't dialed in properly, but I definitely felt an advantage, and lcould be a lot more aggressive with the throftle. Let's hope there's more things to come- I certainly have to improve my first few laps. I'm "lt's horrendous - they've abcolutely f--ked the best track in America, completely." Those were the words oI Neil Hodgson aftea the first p'actice session on Friday rflomiqB at Maida Raceway Laguna Seca. "There are bumps everywhere.lust the higher-frequency bumps everywhere. I mean. these MotoGP bikes, they're not even 8oin8 to b€ able to ride around here - it s fiat bad. lt rnakes our bike a real hand- ful to ride, lt's nervous everywhere: yoil come out of like tum five going towards tum six, and all the way up there, you're Soin& ,qaaahhh.' They'll have to redo it, you know what I mean. They lyill have to redo it dellnitely alter this race." As to what he thought the l.lotoGP ride6 would do after takin8 to the track for the tirst tirne a few minutes later. Hodtson said: "They'll shit the bed. lfthey thouSht last y€ar wes b6d, on a 5.ale of one to I 0, last year was l0 and this is about three. Seri- ously, I'm not exag8erating." Hodgson t\ras tar from beirE alone in his views of the track cianges. ''lt's wrong," Yoshimura Suzuki's Bcn Slies said. "The GP tuys wanted it repaved: the/ got it repaved, ahd it's l0 times worse. There's bump6 that they ve found. lt's the bumpiert [racetrack] on our rhedule now. I mean, the layout's still one of the funnest layouts, but the/'re definitely going to b€ repaving this place as soon as we leave. The grip's good, that's all good. lt's iust a shame to see because it's suah a fun traak. k's one of our best track, and them 8oin8 ofi and repavinS it - it! horrible. Every tum is worse. lt's bad. You can't dow down for the Corkscrew now becaus€ it's flat and down- hill. You come over the crown, you used to kind of brake uphill for at least rnost of the way and then it kind of went down. Now tfiey brought the hill back so much you're goint downhill. And dle whole com€r's tarred- You have to ride on tar or sealer or whatever it is. lt's an ice-skating rink. I don't want to be one of th€ riders to complain and say it's iunk, but k's defintely worse. That'r all there is to it, afld it's a shame." Friday's brief practice was led by American Honda's Miguel Duhamcl, thowh the times were well ofi what the top men tumed the previous year. "You know what? That was a big surprise for me; it was defi- nitet bumpy," Duharnel said. "CominS out of the Corkcrew, there s a set of whoop- de-dos there. I was really surprised there are some places this track ii realt bumpy, so they had trouble probably with it. But you know the track surface, as far as that's concerned, once you 8et ofithe line, it'r a little dirty, it moves, but on line, it's.taning to trip a little bit. Our bike worked pretty good, the way we had it set up, thank God- Ever),thing look good; our tires were look- in8 good. lt's a little hard on the rear, though; we ha\ en't made a choice on the rear tire yet. l'm truly, truly surprised labout the l+ times]. Actually I was sur- prised when the Xtreme bikes were out there and the way they were going. I wa5 like, 'Wow, they're almost three seconds off pace.' So at least that wes fun, to have them out there so you don't go out there and make a mistake." Conrinued on page 32 Briefly... I I t i {d G &.d'o ,1D I t (r N - a=. tR' &r_ j:*H f- I * CYCLE NEl,r'S . AUGUST 2, 2006 3I t t \ I f; it '!