Hayes Finally Wins His First Superbike Race At Infineon, Breaks Suzuki Stranglehold
By Michael Hannas
Photos by Sid Byers
Factory Yamaha's Josh Hayes was the man to finally put an end to the over fifty-race-long winning steak in AMA Superbike for the Yoshimura Suzuki squad with a commanding victory in Saturday's American Superbike Race One at Infineon Raceway.
Rockstar Makita Suzuki's Mat Mladin did take the holeshot, but his lead was short-lived as Ben Bostrom put his Factory Yamaha R-1 into the lead with an aggressive move going into turn one at the beginning of the second lap.
Bostrom then went down later in the lap, handing the lead back to Mladin, but Hayes was determined to represent for the boys in blue and put his Factory Yamaha into the lead on lap 2 going into turn seven. Mladin was able to stay close for a few laps and hold off the charges from his teammate Tommy Hayden, Foremost Ducati's Larry Pegram, Jordan Suzuki's Aaron Yates, and National Guard Suzuki's Geoff May, but eventually Hayes started to pull away from the pack. By the fifth lap Hayes had opened up a two-second lead over Mladin and the rest of the pack, which grew to around ten seconds by mid-race. Mladin looked to be struggling, while Pegram was able to work his way by Hayden for third spot and started to pressure Mladin.
Pegram finally made his move on Mladin on lap ten in turn seven, which also let Hayden by, dropping Mladin to fourth. Yates was past Mladin the following lap as it became clear Mladin was having some sort of issue with the set-up of his machine. With Hayes long gone out front, the battle was on between Pegram, Hayden, and Yates for the final two podium spots.
Hayden kept the pressure on as the trio started coming through the lapped traffic, and was able to strike back on lap seventeen, relegating Pegram back to third. The Ducati rider was able to hold Yates off for the final few laps, with Mladin coming home fifth. The battle for sixth between Taylor Knapp and David Anthony went down to the end, with Knapp taking the spot. Chris Ulrich brought his Suzuki home in eighth, with Ben Bostrom picking it back up and salvaging ninth after his tumble. Local rider Cory Call rounded out the top ten on his MDK Suzuki, getting the best of a race-long scrap with Mark Crozier, Scott Jensen, and Hawk Mazzotta.
Said Hayes after the race, "It was a pretty good day...I got to Mat fairly quickly and I saw that he was struggling with the front, especially in Turn 4, where he fell (yesterday). It hurt him enough for me to get side-by-side with him; I was able to get in front of him and make a small gap. Quite honestly, the R1 was good today, it did not miss a beat anywhere. Other than that, I was sure not to make mistakes. No superbike win will come that easy again, I expect elbow to elbow racing next time!"
Mladin was disappointed but ready to regroup for Sunday, saying, "Obviously, I've had better days. We just didn't hit on the set-up today. Hopefully we'll have a shot at Tommy, you know? We've just got some work to do. We'd like to be in a better position than we are right now, but that's the way it goes. We've had seven wins in a row and we can't complain. We've done a fantastic job. We'll try and keep it together and get back up there tomorrow. I'm not disappointed at all. When you win so much, there's only one place to go if you have a bad day, right? It's not up, right? That's the way it goes, that's life."
Mladin still leads the championship comfortably over Hayden, 237 to 168, with Hayes jumping up to third with 142, followed by May and Bostrom.
AMA American Superbike presented by Parts Unlimited
2009 Round 8 of 20, Infineon Raceway
May 16, 2009
Race One Results
- Josh Hayes (Yam) 22 laps
- Tommy Hayden (Suz) -6.135
- Larry Pegram (Duc) -8.053
- Aaron Yates (Suz) -9.248
- Mat Mladin (Suz) -24.754
- Taylor Knapp (Suz) -29.552
- David Anthony (Suz) -36.687
- Chris Ulrich (Suz) -49.129
- Ben Bostrom (Yam) -51.250
- Cory Call (Suz) -1:22.984
- Mark Crozier (Suz) -1:23.819
- Scott Jensen (Suz) -1:24.188
- Hawk Mazzotta (Suz) -1:29.257
- Aaron Gobert (Hon) - 1 lap
- Geoff May (Suz) - 1 lap
