Cycle News

AMA SUPERBIKE CHAMPIONSHIP VOL. 51 ISSUE 22 JUNE 3, 2014 P39 However, later that lap, the Suzuki man raised his hand, indicating that the skies had opened up. Two laps later the red flag was shown and the race was brought to a tempo- rary halt. CHAOS The race was declared 'wet' for the restart despite largely dry conditions. Nearly the entire field - including all of the front- runners - elected to race on slicks and the race resumed at a pace not far removed from that of the dry first half. Hayes blasted away at the front, opening up a double-digit advan- tage before the rain returned in force. Since the race was al- ready declared wet, it wouldn't be stopped simply due to the re- arrival of precipitation, although numerous riders would later ques- tion this judgment considering the ferocity of the rainfall. Hayes tiptoed around on slicks start and put myself in a good position and then it started raining a little bit. I felt it should have been red-flagged a little sooner. I know it's kind of the leader's decisions, but when every corner has wet flags and you started as a dry race, they need to look at it a little differently. They declared the restart a wet race, and my boys made a really good call - they know the rulebook pretty well - and we were able to put in a new tire and no one else did. You're allowed to change tires for a wet race - rain or slicks. We came from seventh and worked our way to fourth by the first lap and we got on Rog for third. I just wanted to sit there and race for the podium, but then it just started pouring… I just tried to bring it home." 72 LARRY PEGRAM 15TH/6TH Foremost Insurance Pegram Racing's Larry Pegram made some progress with the EBR 1190RS at Road America de- spite a Saturday setback. "The weekend went okay for us," Pegram said. "We've been making some really good steps with the bike. We qualified seventh or eighth, we were mov- ing forward, and then I smoked a clutch on Saturday which took the wind out of my sails after Daytona, having such bad luck. But we came back and got sixth. And really, if they would have finished the race, we would have been fourth. Not a bad finish. The conditions were extremely sketchy, but the bike worked good and we were in the hunt with the second group." 95 ROGER HAYDEN 4TH/3RD Roger Hayden considers Road America one of his weaker tracks, so all-and-all, he was pretty pleased with how things shook out on the weekend - at least as far as the champi- onship picture is concerned. "Things are coming along," Hayden said. "I struggled this weekend but that was more the rider. I've always struggled at this place - never really did any good. I went faster than I ever have here, so I'm happy about that. I'm glad to get out of here with some de- cent points and go on to these tracks with the points lead I think. Now I get to go to some tracks I'm really good at, so I'm looking forward to it." 25 DAVID ANTHONY 5TH/2ND ADR Motorsports' David Anthony picked up his first-career AMA Superbike podium and continued his 2014 streak of top-five results. "Definitely, things are coming around this year," the Australian said. "We're putting the effort in and changing things around and doing things a lot differently. In the past, I've been the main guy behind the team, but I've been able to step back this year. I brought in some good people and that's the difference. I can focus on rid- ing which I've never, ever been able to do. It's always been business first and then riding, but now it's the other way around. I was actually a little disappointed with the week- end. I've been fifth pretty much the whole time, a second off where I need to be. I was down in spirits all weekend. To get a podium, the way it ended up, yeah it's good. But we need to find something the next couple tracks for sure." Chris Clark was also impressive, the third Yoshimura Suzuki rider ending up sixth in race one and fourth in the dire conditions of race two.

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