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unheard-of 9.6 seconds. Spies' pace was impressive, with six of his first 10 laps (including the first from a dead stop) in the 1:25s, and those that weren't were barely in the 1:26s - a 1:26.026, a 1:26.008 and a 1:26.016. Initially it had been Ben Bostrom in sec- ond place, but he would drop down the order, his clutch gone, and he would eventu- ally pit to get it replaced. Then it was the Honda pairing of Duhamel and Zemke giving chase to the fast-disappearing Spies, only to give way to the slow-starting Mladin on the ninth lap. But the Hondas didn't let Mladin go; they were on him all the way. Ditto for Yates, the Yoshimura Suzuki rider dropping back early and then coming forward to run right at the back of that trio. For Spies, it was an awesome display - the kind that gets you noticed. But he would have to do it all over again ,as a red flag came out when Taylor Knapp and Michael Jordan Motorsports' Jason Pridmore crashed two laps apart in the same spot of the Keyhole. If it was a shame for Spies, it was doubly so for Pridmore, who was having his best Superbike ride of the season in a comfort- able sixth place at the time of the crash. Pridmore was banged up in the crash and didn't make the restart. Bostrom would make the restart, but he'd do so one lap down after pitting for the new clutch on the 10th lap. His teammate Hodgson would restart from pit road after his Ducati started spitting gasoline from a split hose on the warmup lap. A quick tape job would get him started, and he would climb to a disappointing 16th at the finish. Bostrom would end up 20th. Not a great day for the boys in red. But there were no such worries for Spies. If he could do it once, he could do it again, right? But not so fast: At the drop of the flag, it was Duhamel leading through turn one, with Spies second and Mladin third. Duhamel's lead didn't last long, though, as Spies sped by on the back straight heading into the turn-six right-hander. Spies' lead this time after one lap was a less-impressive three-tenths of a second. Then, on lap two of the restart, Mladin passed Duhamel in the same spot that Spies had gotten by. After three laps, with Mladin in second place, Spies led by 1.05 seconds. Now we would see if Mladin had anything for him. Initially, the answer was no, as Spies' lead increased by half a second after four laps, growing to 1.5 seconds. But then, a lap later, it was 1.4, and there was some hope. Just as quickly, however, that lead would grow to 2.3 seconds. Game over. Again. Spies would take the win by 5.7 seconds. "We got out on the first start, and I ham- mered the first lap to try and get out as fast as I could," Spies said after his ninth win of the season. "I got a pretty good gap, and just tried to hold it. Then we got the red flag, put some new tires back on it, and gave it 110 percent. There was nothing else I had. It was really tough. It was good. We've got a race lead in the points, and now it's what do you do - do you change whatever, whatever, whatever? But the bike's comfortable. We can't finish any better, so we might as well just keep riding like we've been riding all year. The bike's working really good right now." Zemke would crash out of fourth place on Saturday in the fast-right turn 12, his bike sliding across turn 13 before slamming into the air fence on the exit of the left-hander. Zemke was fortunate to escape the flat-out- in-fourth-gear crash without injury. Zemke's mishap moved everyone behind him up a spot, and that included Tommy Hayden, who had drastically improved his position in the restart - going from eighth to challenging Yates for fourth place. He would come up short at the flag, but he had made a race of it, unlike in the first part, where he'd circulated alone in eighth place after dis- posing of Jordan's Rapp and Holden. For Mladin, it was another second-place finish, his eighth of the year, and he said he had nothing for his teammate. "I was pushing as hard as I could go," Mladin said. "I've got to win races, and I was trying too hard today. Ben was just too fast. That's it." When asked where he thought he could Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course Lexington, OH Rounds 13-14 August 5-6, 2006 AUGUST 16, 2006 • C Y C L E N E W S 18 AMA Superbike Championship 20 Aaron Yates 4th/DNF Yoshimura Suzuki's Aaron Yates was a slow starter both times out at Mid-Ohio. On Saturday, he salvaged a fourth-place finish out of it, but on Sunday he crashed out when Ben Bostrom high- sided in front of him and he had nowhere to go. "This race was better than most this year," said Yates after finishing fourth on Saturday. "I hated to see the red flag, because I had a good groove going and had started making up time on the leaders. I was right there and looking forward to a good race to the end, and then we had to start all over. Overall, it was a pretty decent ride, and now we'll make a few adjustments to make the Suzuki better for tomorrow." As for Sunday, well... "At the start of the race, I didn't get such a good start. I got pinched off and everybody went by. It just took a while to get around guys. As soon as I'd get around some- body, I could run right up to the next guy. I went as fast as I'd been all weekend once I got around Tommy [Hayden]. Then I got to Neil [Hodgson] and just got stuck there. I was getting good runs on the back straight, but as soon as I got past the kink, I was on the limiter and couldn't go any farther. I got by him in traffic and ran up behind Ben, and we were just trying the best I could to get a drive off that turn, and I guess he was also. He got out of shape, and I was up the inside, and I was already hung out and driving. I saw that happen and his bike shot over right in front of me and I hit the brake and went to the ground and just piled up in there. I guess thankfully none of us got hurt. Our bike was working really well, and I just wasted the beginning of it away, getting stuck behind guys." 100 Neil Hodgson 16th/5th Parts Unlimited Ducati's Neil Hodgson had an up-and-down weekend. The down came on Saturday when a fuel line started leaking on the warmup lap for the restart. He soldiered on to finish 16th. "We had a slight problem in the first race, and then when I started the warmup lap on the second one, we got a split in the one of the hoses and it was leaking petrol," Hodgson said. "It was squirting fuel like a spray. I knew I had to come in, because I knew it was fuel. I could smell it. They taped it up. I could see where it was coming up, so I could say, 'You need to tape that up.' It's just one of those things. The bike just wasn't running properly. It was misfiring quite a lot." The up came on Sunday when he took full advantage when his teammate Ben Bostrom and Aaron Yates crashed together just a few laps from the end, and he was able to finish fifth. "That was all right, wasn't it?" Hodgson said. "It was a tough race, really. The usual race. Sud- denly we're getting it to turn sharp and change direction and we're riding hard, you know. I can't give any more than that. I was giving my best, and that was that." 155 Ben Bostrom 20th/DNF On paper, Parts Unlimited Ducati's Ben Bostrom's results from Mid- Ohio look horrible. But in reality, Bostrom had the speed to stay near the front, until a clutch cost him in race one and a crash put him out of race two. "I lost the clutch on the first lap; it was a bit dangerous to ride, so I pulled in and they fixed it," Bostrom said of his mechanical woes early on Saturday. After losing a lap to get the bike fixed, Bostrom was forced to start the second part of the race from the back row. That turned into a harrowing experience, Bostrom said. "That was the most dangerous thing since [Randy] Mamola's two-up ride," Bostrom said, referring to his ride on the back of Mamola's two-seater Ducati MotoGP bike at the U.S. GP. "I'm not kidding. That was really scary. The start was wild. I've never been behind that many guys. With the fast guys, you're kind of stuck on a line, but those guys [the slower rid- ers] can change their line in the middle of the corner. A guy is outside, but he decides he's going to set the guy up, so he turns in the middle of the corner and cuts that way. And there's guys behind him, but he doesn't know. It's just frightening. It was unbelievable." Bostrom said running up front early on was a pipe dream. "We weren't going to stay there. This track, you really need a clutch, because you have to shift in the corner a lot. I had to shift really early and roll in. On the first lap, we had the clutch until we went down the back straight, and then it hit me in the face, which is kind of funny. It knocked my tear-off, and I was like, 'What's that?' I thought it was the front brake. Can you imagine that feeling going down the back straight? I reached for it and the brake was there, so I thought, 'Oh, we're not so bad off - quit whining, Ben, you're all right.'" On Sunday, Bostrom was running fifth and closing on Jake Zemke when he crashed in the Keyhole, taking Yates out at the same time. "It was totally my fault," Bostrom said. "We were just tucked behind Zemke, and I had a great bike. The frustration was getting to me. The Honda is just a missile in a straight line, so I just came off of there upset, and I knew there were just a few laps to go, and I was taking pressure from Yates, so I just [went] for a monster drive. Jake sprang it wide, and I said, 'I'm going to get a bigger drive than you.' Apparently, Yates said he went for the same, which is funny. I came off spinning, and I just laid into the throttle too hard. I don't know which patch I hit. It snapped back, and Yates had nowhere to go. I got lucky, because when I flew through the air, I thought I was going to hit down hard, but I instead I landed right on my bike. My bike was sliding across the ground at 50 mph and I landed on it, so it was like landing on a giant pillow - it was great. Today we had a decent bike, but I need a better start. Rider's fault. The rider is going to have to do a better job." 98 Jake Zemke DNF/4th On Saturday, Jake Zemke crashed in horrific style while in the heat of the battle at the front during the second portion of the restarted race. "I'm perfectly fine," Zemke said on Saturday. "It was a really weird crash. I was fourth gear, and I was still wide open, and I lost the front end. After this Xtreme race is over, we're going to go look at MY OWN RACE The view the competition has had of Ben Spies all season.