Josh Hayes wins Saturday, Mat Mladin back on top Sunday

“We just did not hit the set-up today”. That is how Mat Mladin explained his first non win of the 2009 season in the Saturday race, ending up fifth behind winner Josh Hayes (Yamaha), Suzuki team mate Tommy Hayden, Larry Pegram (Ducati) and Aaron Yates aboard another Suzuki.

Josh Hayes was down to fourth place early in the race before passing Mladin and the other leaders and running away to a 6 sec. win. The popular rider was somewhat surprised at his first AMA Superbike win: “I never would have imagined that it would come this easily”. For his part, Mladin promised to do better in the Sunday race.

And he did do better on Sunday, as we saw the old Mladin back in front, dicing for the whole race with former World Superbike Champion Ben Bostrom (Yamaha). The margin at the flag was 1.833 sec. after Bostrom had closed to less than 1 sec on lap 18. Suzuki rider Tommy Hayden followed in third place, his second podium of the weekend after a good second place on Saturday.

Mladin declared he was exhausted after the very tight race, and it did look like a straight fight, except that Maldin could stretch out a small gap whenever he ran up on lapped traffic and Bostrom came back to him... Saturday winner Josh Hayes was feeling unwell throughout the event, and did well to hang on for fourth, ahead of Pegram and Geoff May (Suzuki).

The next round in the AMA series is a double-header at Elkhart Lake (WI) on June 5 to 7.


AMA American Superbike Race 1 - Infineon Raceway
Pos Rider Bike Interval
1 Josh Hayes Yamaha 22 Laps
2 Tommy Hayden Suzuki +6.135
3 Larry Pegram Ducati +8.054
4 Aaron Yates Suzuki +9.249
5 Mat Mladin Suzuki +24.755
6 Taylor Knapp Suzuki +29.522
...

AMA American Superbike Race 2 - Infineon Raceway
Pos Rider Bike Interval
1 Mat Mladin Suzuki 22 Laps
2 Ben Bostrom Yamaha +1.833
3 Tommy Hayden Suzuki +4.551
4 Josh Hayes Yamaha +13.136
5 Larry Pegram Ducati +24.462
6 Geoff May Suzuki +29.714
...

AMA American Superbike Points – 9 of 20 races
Pos Rider Points Total Wins
1 Mat Mladin 268 8
2 Tommy Hayden 189 0
3 Josh Hayes 160 1
4 Ben Bostrom 150 0
5 Geoff May 143 0
6 Larry Pegram 131 5
...



Photo Credit : AMA