SWEEP FONTANA AGAIN
Following their victory in Saturday's AMA Superbike Championship race at Fontana in California, Rockstar Makita Suzuki team mates Mat Mladin and Tommy Hayden dominated Sunday's race with another one-two victory.
A Red Flag stopped the race early on and in the restart Hayden was able to take the holeshot ahead of Mladin. They exchanged the lead once more during the race before Mladin capitalised on a nearly-flawless race to the chequered flag. Hayden was not able to keep pace with Mladin in the final laps but he succeeded in holding off the rest of the field and earning another second-place finish for the Suzuki Superbike Challenge weekend.
Newly signed Blake Young had a rough day, jumping the start and then working his way up from last place. The young rider made the best of a bad situation, however, and brought home a top-10 finish.
Mat Mladin:
"I had a good race today. We learned a little bit from Tommy Hayden yesterday and we changed a couple things today. We made some improvements and it allowed me to stay close to him and make the move when I needed to. We ran a little bit hotter pace today and it was a very good race overall for Rockstar Makita Suzuki. It's great to have Suzuki up here on top again with first and second-placed finishes. The Rockstar Makita Suzuki crew can take most of the credit for that. I show up for the weekend and have a great motorbike to race in the Suzuki GSX-R1000. "
Tommy Hayden:
"It was shaping up to be a pretty good race battling with Mat. I got on the front straightaway and missed a couple gears. Overall, the Suzuki GSX-R1000 was very good. I had some issues with grip today so it was a little harder for me to run with Mat. He had his head down today. It was a good weekend with two second-placed finishes. I've got a little momentum going into Road Atlanta and we'll try to keep up what we've been doing. "
Blake Young:
"My race started out good. I got a good start and then we had the red flag and had to re-grid. I just jumped the start so I had to come into the pits and do a ride-through and that's basically where my race ended. But I did my best and worked my way through to ninth place. I think as far as looking at the positives from today, we learned a lot from race one on Saturday and applied it to race two on Sunday. And because of that, I think we have a better bike going into Road Atlanta because of it."
1. Mat Mladin (Rockstar Makita Suzuki)2. Tommy Hayden (Rockstar Makita Suzuki)3. Larry Pegram (Ducati)4. Geoff May (National Guard Jordan Suzuki)5. Ben Bostrom (Yamaha)6. Josh Hayes (Yamaha)7. Taylor Knapp (Suzuki)8. David Anthony (Suzuki)9. Blake Young (Rockstar Makita Suzuki)10. Aaron Yates (Jordan Suzuki)
Championship points (after 3 races): 1 Mladin 94, 2 Hayden 72, 3 May 50, 4 Young 46, 5 Bostrom 45, 6 Hayes 43, 7 Pegram 39, 8 Yates 31, 9 Gobert 30, 10 Knapp 26.
