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SUPERBIKE AMA PRO SUPERBIKE SERIES ROUND 4/JULY 13, 2014 MAZDA RACEWAY LAGUNA SECA/MONTEREY, CALIFORNIA P88 first laps. Cam [Beaubier] gets a bad start, he's fourth and has to get through those guys, and I get a little gap. That set the tone of the race." Although the fat broad isn't singing yet with 120 points and four races (two rounds) still sit- ting on the table, you get the feeling she's gone to get the mi- crophone. Hayes isn't prone to making silly mistakes and, bar- ring mechanical problems, you put a 40-point lead in the old man's pocket and it's pretty hard to get it back. In the seven races held thus far, Hayes has won five of them and finished second in one other. The only blemish on his 2014 scorecard is the DNF from the second race at Daytona in March. The race weekend began with high expectations of a big battle between the two Monster- backed Graves Yamahas, with this round – unlike the others – featuring just one race as it served as a support race for the World Superbike Championship. Fresh off his four race wins in a row, Hayes was his normal stead- fast self in practice and qualify- ing, but class rookie Beaubier also seemed to be on the road to regaining his form after a dis- mal stretch of three races (one at Road America and two at Bar- ber Motorsports Park). The phe- nom had his swagger back and it showed in practice and qualifying where he ended up with the up- per hand over Hayes in the form of his second pole position of the season – and career. What Went Wrong? Hayes didn't get the holeshot in the National as that instead went to Yoshimura Suzuki's Martin Cardenas, the Colombian having been third fastest for the majority of the weekend. But Hayes didn't waste much time in moving past the Suzuki and eking out a gap. My Own Race: #36 MARTIN CARDENAS 4 TH Yoshimura Suzuki's Martin Cardenas had a tough race at Laguna Seca. He started well, but was passed by both Cameron Beaubier and his Yoshimura teammate Roger Hayden. "I was struggling a lot with the rear-tire grip," Cardenas said. "It was kind of the same problem we had all weekend. We were losing a little bit in each section to the other guys and I was trying to do whatever I could, but it wasn't enough. I had a moment in the Corkscrew. I went over the curb and it was a little dusty. I lost the front and almost crashed. I stayed on the bike and I kept pushing, but Roger was a little bit faster each lap. I pushed to the end, but it wasn't enough. I didn't have the speed today." #11 CHRIS FILLMORE 5 TH Chris Fillmore's 2013 AMA Superbike season ended in September with him running out of gas on the way to the checkered flag. So fifth place this time around was better, but he still ended up a tad frustrated as he failed to find the same sort of speed in his KTM that he had a year ago here. "I was on my own island," Fillmore said after spending the entire race by himself. "I had a lot of time in my head in that race. For a second I was like 'Oh, I guess this is kind of like leading a race.' I couldn't see anybody in front of me and there wasn't too much pressure behind me so it was kind of like an endurance race. I just kind of filed in when I knew I couldn't run the pace. The first couple of laps, those guys just seemed to be a little bit faster than me so I just rode my own race and it ended up being a little bit slower than the front-runners and a little bit faster than the guys behind me. It just filtered out." #6 CHRIS CLARK 9 TH Yoshimura Suzuki's Chris Clark had his worst weekend of the season at Laguna Seca, the Las Vegas resident never getting up to speed on his GSX-R1000 and ultimately fin- ishing ninth. This after having his best-ever finish of third in race one at Barber Motorsports Park. "I struggled all week- end and just hit a wall," Clark said. "We know the areas; we can see it on the data. It's just trying to get the bike to work and the speed would've gotten there. We could see the problem on the data, but we just couldn't fix it on time. In the race I just got to that wall and every lap was just the same time, the same time. It was probably the most consis- tent I've ever been. It wasn't the weekend that we wanted. It was definitely frustrating and we'll just put this weekend behind us and move on to Ohio. This year every track after Cal Speedway we've found the setup that I liked – suspen- sion, electronics. We've carried that over to every round. At Road America we were quicker in the first practice than all of last year. At Barber we were quicker in the first prac- tice. It's been really easy to get up to speed and it's been working really well. We tried to carry that same strategy this weekend and for whatever reason it just didn't work." It took Cameron Beaubier (2) a while to work his way past the Yoshimura Suzukis of Martin Cardenas (36) and Roger Lee Hayden (95).

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