Advertisement

Patience Pays in Superbike Race

Times Staff Writer

For as much as speed counts in superbike racing, so does patience -- a point Ben Spies rode home Sunday at California Speedway.

Spies patiently stalked Mat Mladin midway through the second race in the AMA Suzuki Superbike Challenge, the two racing in synchronized fashion across the 21-turn course as though Spies was Mladin’s shadow.

But as they crossed the start-finish line on the Fontana track’s front straightaway to start the 18th lap of the 28-lap race, Spies passed Mladin and held the lead to earn a 4.5-second victory over the six-time superbike champion.

Advertisement

Spies, 21, also won Saturday’s first-round race on the 2.3-mile course. He has now defeated the 34-year-old Mladin -- his teammate on the Yoshimura Suzuki Team -- and the rest of the superbike riders in four consecutive races.

Mladin hasn’t gone that long without a victory since the Australian went winless in 2002.

“I was waiting to see how hard he [Mladin] was having to work,” Spies said, adding that he saw his opening to take the lead as they finished the 17th lap and “I was closer than I had been” all day.

“I got a good run and passed him,” said Spies, a Longview, Texas, rider who started on the pole and won with an average speed of 97.5 mph. He now has a 19-point lead over Mladin in the series’ points chase.

Advertisement

“We didn’t have it today, and that was it,” Mladin said. “I give everything I’ve got when I go racing, and right now it’s not good enough.”

The only silver lining, Mladin said, was that Spies was providing him with needed competition after winning had come so easily in recent years.

“It’s good to have somebody there to pick up my game,” he said.

American Honda rider Jake Zemke was third, just as he finished Saturday.

Many superbike riders such as Spies also compete in the AMA’s secondary classes, including supersport and superstock, whose motorcycles are based on four-stroke street bikes sold to the public.

Advertisement

In the supersport race, Jamie Hacking -- the series’ 2003 champion -- won for the Yamaha USA team after a crash involving Shea Fouchek brought out the red flag and prompted officials to end the race after 14 of its scheduled 17 laps. Michael Barnes was second on a Suzuki.

Spies started second in the supersport event but fell off his bike after colliding with Barnes on the first lap. Spies resumed riding but finished 34th.

Spies “just got kind of tangled up with my tail section” in the third turn as they both went low on the track, said Barnes, 37.

Hacking also took over the supersport points lead.

Kawasaki rider Roger Lee Hayden, who had led the points coming to Fontana, did not race as he had hoped after breaking his leg last weekend in Alabama.

“It’s just not safe enough for me,” Hayden, 22, said as he sat in the garage with his leg -- wrapped in a cast -- resting on a pillow.

“It’s really unfortunate to be in the position we’re in and have to sit out a race,” he said.

Advertisement

The Owensboro, Ky., rider, who had surgery to repair the injury, said he has three weeks to recuperate before the next race at Infineon Raceway in Sonoma.

In the superstock race, defending Fontana winner Jason Disalvo of the Graves Yamaha team won again by two seconds over Hacking. Aaron Yates was third in a Suzuki.

Advertisement