News - May 09 Barber Motorsports
Honda Superbike Classic
Barber Motorsports Park, Birmingham, ALRace #1 & #2 reports
Rockstar Makita Suzuki’s Mat Mladin won his seventh AMA Superbike race of the season on Sunday afternoon at Barber Motorsports Park in Birmingham, Alabama. Despite lengthy delays in the racing program due to heavy rain and tornado warnings, an abbreviated, 16-lap AMA Superbike race was
run at the end of the day and six-time AMA Superbike Champion Mladin picked up his 79th career AMA Superbike win. Jordan Suzuki’s Aaron Yates followed Mladin home in second place and picked up his best result of the season. Rockstar Makita Suzuki teammate Tommy Hayden struggled with
the track’s semi-wet conditions and finished up in eighth place, while Rockstar Makita Suzuki’s Blake Young crashed early on and was unable to finish the race.
Tommy Hayden
“It was just an awkward day today. Once we got out on the track, it was a struggle with all the wet spots and I had a hard time feeling comfortable. It felt very slippery and I couldn’t get into a good rhythm. It was getting a little better as the race went on, but not good enough. It was unfortunate, but at the end of the day, I think I’m in a pretty similar position in the points as far as the gap behind me, so that’s a positive. Also, I did learn a lot with the new Suzuki that I think we can put to use in the next race.”
Mat Mladin
“It’s good to get seven AMA Superbike wins in a row. Now we’ll go to Infineon and see if we can get another one. The Rockstar Makita Suzuki GSX-R1000 worked great today. We found some stuff out this morning in the warm-up and I had a completely different motorcycle in the afternoon. I was able to run some lap times that were very similar to this morning, even with the wet conditions of the track and that’s pretty good. I feel like we’ve made a lot of progress with the new 2009 bike this weekend.”
Aaron Yates
“It’s great to be on the podium again, it’s been a while. This weekend has been up and down for us. We only got the 2009 Jordan Suzuki GSX-R1000 a few weeks ago and we’re still getting it sorted out. But I’m feeling pretty good about the bike, and it’s running pretty good. It just feels great to get back up on the podium and show how hard the Jordan Suzuki guys are working.”
Honda Superbike Classic
Barber Motorsports Park, Birmingham, AL
Race #1
Rockstar Makita Suzuki’s Mat Mladin put the 2009 GSX-R1000 through its first-ever race paces at Birmingham’s Barber Motorsports Park on Saturday afternoon and came away with the win. Although this victory was a first for the brand-new ’09 model, it was Mladin’s 78th career AMA Superbike victory and Suzuki’s 52nd consecutive AMA Superbike victory. Mladin started from pole position – his 59th pole position, actually – and took the lead on the sixth lap and never looked back. The six-time AMA Superbike Champion led the remainder of the laps to the checkered flag. Rockstar Makita Suzuki teammates Blake Young and Tommy Hayden followed Mladin home in second and fourth positions, respectively.
Tommy Hayden
“The race went all right. We made a lot of changes to the bike last night, the most we’ve made in a long time and definitely on this new bike. And not having a warm-up this morning because of the rain, I wasn’t really sure of the bike. But as the race went on, I got comfortable with the GSX-R1000 and was going faster and faster. I was able to close up the gap to the battle for second place. But unfortunately, I ran out of time and I wasn’t able to get by. But I definitely felt like we were moving forward today and hope that tomorrow we’ll start out a little bit stronger and get a little bit better result.”
Mat Mladin
“At the start of the race, the boys were having a bit of a go and I
was trying to get a feel for the new 2009 Suzuki with a full tank of
gas and a few laps in. I had a bit of a look at what the other guys
were doing and
made my way through. I just tried to keep it solid,
but tried not to wear too much stuff out, cause we really didn’t know
what the bike was capable of doing or what it was going to do to the
tires. This motorcycle, as
far as a GSX-R1000 goes, is very, very
different to any other one we’ve ever had. It’s a very different
motorbike. We have some work to do to try and figure out a few things.
We didn’t want to go too crazy today. We were riding hard, but we
needed to keep it within a certain envelope.”
Blake Young
“I got a pretty good start out there on the Rockstar Makita Suzuki
GSX-R1000. After getting out front, I really wanted to se what the
track was like and I just tried to get comfortable and put in a pace
that I was
comfortable doing. Ben (Bostrom) came by and he was
running a bit quicker, so I just jumped in and tried to learn where he
was a little bit better. All of a sudden, Mat came by and he was
running even more of a quicker pace, so I knew he was going to go. I
was just trying to stay on his rear wheel and wait until he went by Ben
and try to go with him. It didn’t end up like that. We had to wait
another lap, but I just kept my head down and worked really hard this
weekend. We’ve got another race tomorrow, and hopefully we can get up
there and race with Mat a little bit longer.”
