Provisional 2008 AMA Superbike Champion Ben Spies led a Rockstar Suzuki clean sweep in race two at Road Atlanta yesterday.
He started the the 25-lap race from pole position and ran in second to team-mate Mat Mladin for much of the race before taking over the lead and capturing his first Road Atlanta Superbike win.
This is Spies’ 28th career AMA Superbike win and his 10th victory of the year. Mladin led most of the laps before being overtaken by Spies and this is his 14th AMA Superbike podium of the season, eight of which were wins.
For Hayden, who led the first lap before settling into third place, this is his eighth Superbike podium of the year. Currently, Spies leads the AMA Superbike title chase, Mladin is in second place and Hayden is in ninth.
Mat Mladin:
"It was all we could do today to get second. We changed the Rockstar Makita Suzuki GSX-R1000 quite a bit from yesterday and it felt quite good… but with a few laps to go I just couldn’t hang on anymore and I wound up settling for second."
Ben Spies:
"The race was good; I got a little better start than yesterday and was able to get past Tommy. Then Mat came by and he was in a good rhythm right off the bat! Around lap 13 or 14, I started making a lot of mistakes and I wasn’t as comfortable as I’d been the day before, so I realised I needed to ride as hard as I could and what happened, happened. I saw Mat get balked by a few lappers and I put my head down and made the pass, and tried to stay pretty clean and bring it back. Luckily, with the Rockstar Makita Suzuki GSX-R1000, we had the speed to run a really good race."
Tommy Hayden:
"I went a little better today on the Rockstar Makita Suzuki GSX-R1000. At the start, I held the guys off a little longer and I was able to pull away from everyone else. Ben looked like he was making more of a push and got away from me. Then I got a big gap and was able to get through the lappers and bring it home."
Results:
1. Ben Spies (Suz GSX-R1000), Dunlop, 25 laps
2. Mat Mladin (Suz GSX-R1000), Dunlop, -7.107 seconds
3. Tommy Hayden (Suz GSX-R1000), Dunlop, -25.820
4. Miguel Duhamel (Hon CBR1000RR), Dunlop, -29.099
5. Jason DiSalvo (Yam YZF-R1), Dunlop, -31.205
6. Eric Bostrom (Yam YZF-R1), Dunlop, -44.529
7. Neil Hodgson (Hon CBR1000RR), Dunlop, -50.689
8. Aaron Yates (Suz GSX-R1000), Dunlop, -55.990
9. Matt Lynn (Hon CBR1000RR), Dunlop, -56.350
10. Geoff May (Suz GSX-R1000), Dunlop, -61.759
