Cycle News

ROUND 12/SEPTEMBER 28-29, 2013 MAZDA RACEWAY LAGUNA SECA/MONTEREY, CALIFORNIA WORLD SUPERBIKE man home, in sixth place, with wild card American teammate Blake Young 12th. Tony Elias was seventh in his second Red Devils Roma Aprilia weekend and top wild card was Hayden in eighth place. Davide Giugliano was a star turn under the stars and stripes. It was a happy end to a happy return to the Laguna Seca racetrack for World Superbike racing. In the championship Sykes leaves the Laguna Seca round with a points total of 361. Laverty SUCCESS! P62 WORLD SUPERBIKE CHAMPIONSHIP is now second with 338 – one Race Two point more than Guintoli – while 1. Eugene Laverty (Aprilia) 2. Davide Guigliano (Aprilia) Melandri is adrift still with 319. 3. Marco Melandri (BMW) 4. Tom Sykes (Kawasaki) Race One 5. Sylvain Guintoli (Aprilia) 1. Tom Sykes (Kawasaki) 6. Jules Cluzel (Suzuki) 2. Chaz Davies (BMW) 7. Toni Elias (Aprilia) 3. Eugene Laverty (Aprilia) 8. Roger Lee Hayden (Suzuki) 4. Marco Melandri (BMW) 9. David Salom (Kawasaki) 5. Sylvain Guintoli (Aprilia) 10. Michel Fabrizio (Honda) 6. Davide Guigliano (Aprilia) 7. Jean Cluzel (Suzuki) 8. Toni Elias (Aprilia) 9. Ayrton Badovini (Ducati) 10. Mark Atchison (Kawasaki) Roger Lee Hayden, Danny Eslick and the Michael Jordan Motorsports team decided late in the game that they would participate in the World Superbike round at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca. So they showed up with their AMA-spec Superbikes fresh from the New Jersey round, poured the legal race gas in, changed the tires and went racing. And race they did. Although both Hayden and his teammate Danny Eslick both crashed out of Saturday's race, Hayden turned the weekend into a huge success with a eighth-place finish against the world's best Superbike racers on Sunday. If not for a problem late in the race, he surely would have beaten Toni Elias for seventh. "I'm pretty excited," Hayden said after Sunday's race. "Our goal coming in here was to try and get inside the top 10. I was running seventh there for a while and actually the last 10 laps I lost my rear brakes. I was trying to hang on there and bring it home and still be competitive. My times dropped off almost a second a lap because I use the rear brake so much at a track like this. It's also kind of how we have our electronics dialed in to, with how much I use the rear brake. It changed a lot. "But I'm excited… six, seven, eight laps into it and going into the last turn I was in the lead group. We feel pretty good about that. We came in winging it for the weekend. Since I totaled the bike yesterday, the one I rode today is exactly the same thing I rode in Jersey Roger Lee Hayden was impressive as a wild card on the Michael Jordan Motorsports Suzuki GSX-R1000. except for the gas and tires." Hayden said that the difference between his Jordan Suzuki and the World Superbikes wasn't as big as he thought coming into the race. "It wasn't too terribly bad, I didn't think," Hayden said of the difference between bikes. "A few spots theirs were a bit better, but for us it might have helped in some areas with ours being a bit down [on power]." The switch to Pirelli rubber from the Dunlops was the big factor. "They just move around a lot and it had a totally different feeling. It had a little bit more grip on the side, like in turn three, but they really move around a lot more so it took a little while to get used to that." Overall, Hayden said it was a huge success and racing as a wild card was most definitely the right decision. "What a fun weekend and hats off to the team because I had the easy part," Hayden said. "My leathers, boots and all that was going to be here anyway. I just had to show up and ride one way or another, but in three days they did all the paperwork, got the garage looking like we were a professional team and I think it was good for our series as well. It showed how competitive we are. It makes the team look good." Paul Carruthers

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