Britain’s Neil Hodgson scored a double
podium at Miller Motorsport Park this weekend with a pair of
inspired rides in the AMA Superbike double-header.

The race was the first ever for World Superbike
at Miller Motorsports Park, but with a twist:
World Superbike riders raced on the 3.06-mile
Perimeter Course, while the AMA Superbike riders
raced on the 4.486-mile Full Course. Both courses
have a European feel, with long flowing corners
and no stop-start corners. The Full Course has 23
turns, where the Honda CBR1000RR can show its
versatility. And the 3500-foot straightaway is
the longest on the World Superbike calendar,
which lets the 1000 stretch its legs.

Hodgson ran second for more than half of
Saturday’s Superbike race before being passed by
Jamie Hacking (Kawasaki) on the 10th of 14 laps,
but not before the pair had literally rubbed
elbows. That came after Hodgson collected a tire
mark on the thigh of his leathers as the result of another close encounter.

Hodgson saw that Hacking had chosen a different
tire on Saturday, so on Sunday, he was better
prepared. He first passed six-time AMA Superbike
Champion Mat Mladin (Suzuki) for second and was
drawing a bead on the race leader when he again
came under attack from Hacking. This time Hacking
made the pass on lap eight of 14 and held Hodgson off for the duration.

For Hodgson, who worked as a test rider and
didn’t race last year, it was a long overdue
return to the podium and he savored it in front
of his former World Superbike brethren

“Yeah, it did, it made it more sweet” to podium
for the World Superbike crowd, he said. “It just
proved that I’m not just slogging around over
here in America trying to earn some money. I’m
out here racing, going as hard as I can.”

Duhamel ran fourth on Saturday before being
passed by Hacking on his march to second. The
next day he battled Aaron Yates (Suzuki) to the
flag, coming up short by less than a second.

Still, it was the best weekend to date for the
American Honda team and a hopeful sign of things
to come. Next weekend’s race is at another high
speed track, Road America, where Hondas have done well in the past.

Neil Hodgson said: "Yeah, I knew where Jamie (Hacking) was going to
be on the track so I was just reaching across
trying to block him like you do in racing. I
think he squared the corner up before me and just
got a better drive out of it, so there was
nothing I could do and he got the inside line.
Like I said, I like rubbing elbows with Jamie
(Hacking) because I know him really well and he’s
a good friend and we’ve done a bit of training
together in the past. Don’t get me wrong, we
still want to beat each other, but it’s nice that
you know no one’s going to do something
stupid. On Sunday, I just copied what Jamie
(Hacking) ran yesterday, because obviously his
tire looked better after the race. I had no big
problems, really, just felt like that was the
limit for me, really. I didn’t want to throw away
the third place. I couldn’t go with Jamie, so I
was happy to get the points and build on this weekend.