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SUPERBIKE AMA PRO SUPERBIKE SERIES ROUND 4/JULY 13, 2014 MAZDA RACEWAY LAGUNA SECA/MONTEREY, CALIFORNIA P94 rider getting the better of Ber- nat Martinez, the Spaniard finishing eighth on his proto- Tech Spain-backed Yamaha R1. Yoshimura Suzuki's Chris Clark was another who fal- tered in the series' only race on the West Coast, the third rider on the Yosh team well off the pace in ninth place. Brazilian Sebastiao Ferreira rounded out the top 10 on his Porter Racing Kawasaki ZX- 10R. Only 15 riders started the AMA Superbike race at Lagu- na Seca with series regulars Larry Pegram and Chris Ul- rich jumping to the World Su- perbike round that headlined the weekend in Monterey. With Hayes and his 175 points way out in front, just four points separate the next three riders with Beaubier's 135 just a point ahead of Hayden's 134 and four more than Anthony's 131. Clark is fifth with 117 points. CN SUPERBIKE FINAL 1. Josh Hayes (Yamaha) 2. Cameron Beaubier (Yamaha) 3. Roger Hayden (Suzuki) 4. Martin Cardenas (Suzuki) 5. Chris Fillmore (KTM) 6. David Anthony (Suzuki) 7. Cory West (EBR) 8. Bernat Martinez (Yamaha) 9. Chris Clark (Suzuki) 10. Sebastiao Ferreira (Kawasaki) Briefly... Roger Hayden and his Davey Jones- led crew found something in the Su- zuki GSX-R1000 that Hayden says will help the rest of the way – even at next weekend's Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course round. "We made changes all weekend," Hayden said. "We got the bike working good. I didn't have an outright fast lap. We had a lot of front chatter all through the weekend and we basically got rid of almost all of it. We had a lot of work to do this weekend, but we got there at the end for sure. It's going to translate to Mid- Ohio and we're going to start with something good." Chris Fillmore and his HMC KTM team hoped to make more progress with the RC8R at Laguna then they did. "I think we made progress, but we're quite a ways off what we quali- fied here last year," Fillmore said. "It seemed like everybody was – besides Yamaha. The Yosh guys were in the 24s last year, at least Martin [Carde- nas] was, but I don't think he got very close to that this year. I don't know the reason. We tried some suspen- sion and went back and forth. There was something I really liked about one set and some things I didn't; and some things I like about the other. In the end we did a combination of the two bikes we were trying all weekend. I was happy that I could run so consis- tently, but I'm bummed that I couldn't go half a second faster. I could qualify at that, but I couldn't do it as a race pace. I think that's a big goal is to be able to run what I qualify at as a race pace. Usually I can, but it wasn't going to happen today." The combined World Superbike/AMA Superbike weekend attracted a crowd of 49,408 spectators, according to the racetrack. That's 20 percent more than last year's crowd of 41,175, a crowd that was no doubt hurt by the fact the World Superbike round ran in September – just two months after the MotoGP round at the same venue. Daytona winner Tyler O'Hara went into Laguna Seca with a one-point lead in the Vance & Hines Harley-Davidson Championship over Danny Eslick, but Eslick's win and another fourth-place finish dropped O'Hara 11 points be- hind Eslick. "I'm kind of sick of getting fourth," O'Hara said. "But I'm riding re- ally well and I'm riding consistent. And we're finishing races. And there's still a lot of racing left and I've got some good tracks coming up." Since Daytona, O'Hara and his team- mate Josh Chisum have basically been short staffed, a.k.a. they've been pretty much crew-less. "We've been really short handed," O'Hara said. "We don't really have a crew. So we've been changing tires and driving to the races; you know it's just part of the deal to do what we gotta do. But this weekend we've kind of had some set- backs." Setbacks in the form of brake issues in practice and a blown head gasket in Friday's faster qualifying session, making more work for race time with a seventh-place qualifying position. While O'Hara acknowledges the challenge against tough competi- tion, he's not giving up. "I'm still posi- tive. We're top five every weekend. But realistically I gotta go win races to win this championship. These guys are riding really well. There're a lot of past champions in this class. And I think it's really stacked. I don't think people give it enough credit. That's how good we're riding. My goal is to win the championship this year. Going to keep fighting every weekend. Just take it one weekend at a time."

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