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who knows what the margin of victory would have been, since he led by almost 10 seconds when the race was stopped after 16 laps. On Sunday, Spies was again fast off the mark, but two men - Miguel Duhamel and Mat Mladin - were at least able to keep him a bit more honest. At least for a few laps. But, again, Spies was able to run the lap times for the duration, and they weren't. The result was a 4.2-second win after Spies eased the pace at the end. If Mladin and Duhamel feel bad, the others will surely have trouble sleeping. Those two were the best of the rest, and their battle on Sunday kept the crowd entertained, as the pair of veterans went back and forth, with Mladin getting the bet- ter of it in traffic late it the race to secure second place. It was the Australian's second runner-up spot on the weekend and his ninth second-place finish of the season - consistent, but one spot lower than what Mladin is used to. Duhamel was also consistent on the weekend, finishing third both times out. It was the closest he's been to the facto- ry Suzukis, and he left feeling confident for the next round in Virginia. If those three were consistent in nailing down podium fin- ishes in both races, the rest were far from being so. If you look at the points breakdown from the two races, Kawasaki's Tommy Hayden would be the next best after those four, but he left the weekend with his head down after fifth- and seventh- place finishes. And then it would be his teammate and brother Roger Lee Hayden, by virtue of his two eighth-place finishes, who would have finished fifth if overall standings were handed out. The rest of the factory men flip-flopped between having a good race and a horrible one. Yoshimura Suzuki's Aaron Yates finished fourth on Saturday but crashed out on Sunday trying to avoid Parts Unlimited Ducati's Ben Bostrom, who crashed directly in front of him. And Bostrom had finished 20th the day before after having to pit for a new clutch. American Honda's Jake Zemke appeared to have the lead trio's pace on Saturday, but he crashed out of fourth place in a high-speed lowside. On Sunday, he finished fourth, but was more than 14 seconds behind Spies. On Sunday, Bostrom's teammate Neil Hodgson took advantage of the Yates/Bostrom crash to finish fifth, but a day earlier he'd had a problem with a split fuel line and ended up 16th after starting the red-flag-interrupted race from pit lane after hasty repairs by his mechanics. Michael Jordan Motorsports' Steve Rapp and Jason Pridmore split sixth-place finishes, but they also split nonfinish- es. On Saturday, Rapp rode to sixth, with Pridmore crashing out of that spot in the Keyhole. On Sunday, a beat-up Pridmore would finish sixth, while Rapp was too beat up to ride after hav- ing crashed out of the Superstock final. Weird. Their teammate Jake Holden, meanwhile, kept things upright to finish seventh on Saturday and ninth on Sunday. Larry Pegram ended up ninth and 11th over the course of the two days on his privateer Honda at his home racetrack. Then it was back to being consistent for Matt Lynn, the pri- vateer Suzuki rider finishing 10th on both days in an otherwise rather bizarre weekend of racing. But there was nothing bizarre about the performance of one Mr. Ben Spies. In fact, for him, it was rather commonplace. It started on Saturday when he nailed the holeshot, dropped the hammer and took off at the start to lead by an astounding 2.3 sec- onds after just one lap. And it didn't get any more difficult for him from there, as he did a Freddie Spencer on the competition and complete- ly buried them early on. The gap was 4.1 seconds after two laps, and 5.2 after three. Then it got more gradual: 5.7 after four laps, 5.8 after five. Then it would grow again, his biggest lead coming on the 16th lap - a whopping and C Y C L E N E W S • AUGUST 16, 2006 17 Ben Spies started off his successful week- end by earning pole position for the two Superbike races on Saturday morning. Spies broke the lap record for the repaved race- track on Friday, then went even faster on Saturday - ending up with a 1:24.917. He was the only rider to crack the 1:25 barrier. "The point's good," Spies said of the extra championship point earned for pole posi- tion. "It's definitely going to be tough. It was kind of rough yesterday. We had provi- sional [pole], but it wasn't that easy at all. We went out today on a pure race setup and did about seven laps within the pole lap, and that was good. We were on one pretty good lap at the end, and just didn't give myself enough of a gap, and kind of ran into somebody - but no big deal. The race setup should be good. It's going to be a good race." Spies' Yoshimura Suzuki teammate Mat Mladin ended up second on the grid, lap- ping at 1:25.442 on Friday and not going faster on Saturday. One of his potential good laps was ruined with a big slide in turn one. "I just got into it a bit too hard, got on the gas a little bit too early," Mladin said. "We put a soft tire in there, and that sort of happens on them. I don't even know if they were qualifying tires, honestly. Apparently they were qualifying tires, but they certainly don't work like qualifying tires. I got in the first turn and just got out of shape, and it was all over." The two American Hondas continue to show improvement, with both Jake Zemke and Miguel Duhamel getting clos- er each and every week to the two Suzukis. Zemke ended up qualifying third. "We're getting closer, but we still have a ways to go," Zemke said. "We're over a half-second off where Ben [Spies] was. A half-second's a lot. When you get going that fast, a half- second's a lot. The thing's working good. It's definitely getting better all the time, but we still have room to close in on those guys. They're both riding great; awesome job for both of those guys. I'm looking for- ward to the race. It should be good." Zemke concurred with Mladin that he did- n't gain much of anything from the Dunlop qualifying tires. "I don't know what these guys did, but qualifying tires didn't do any- thing," Zemke said. "It was terrible. I had less grip with that than I did with the race tire. That was pretty much a waste. That's just the way it is. I'm sure everybody's probably in the same boat. It seems like they bring us these qualifying tires, and they're old tires, and our bikes are set up for the New Technology tires, and it's almost a waste of time, really. The new tires are so good, and the new asphalt, the grip level's so high already, that you usually aren't going to do much with the qualifying tires." Duhamel ended up fourth on the front row. "We had a very good test at Virginia a couple of months ago, and finally, I think, Briefly... Continued on page 19 AGAIN Jake Zemke (front) crashed out of race one, but battled past Ben Bostrom (behind) to finish fourth in race two.