Ninjette Newsbot
June 19th, 2011, 06:40 PM
2011 AMA Pro Barber Sunday Superbike race results—Young over Hayes at Barber
http://image.sportrider.com/f/news/146_1106_2011_ama_pro_barber_sunday_race_results_young_over_hayes_at_barber/37241220+ppromo_large/146-1106-+2011-ama-pro-barber-final-Sunday-results-young-wins+.jpg
Rockstar Makita Suzuki's Blake Young held off Monster Energy Graves Yamaha's Josh Hayes at Barber Motorsports Park (http://www.sportrider.com/news/146_1106_2011_ama_pro_barber_sunday_race_results_young_over_hayes_at_barber/index.html)BIRMINGHAM, AL, JUNE 19 – Rockstar Makita Suzuki’s Blake Young wasn’t at his best most of the weekend. The Wisconsinite put it to “personal issues,” which he didn’t elaborate on. What he did say was that they were resolved by Sunday. And it showed.
Over 21 laps of the undulating 2.38-mile Barber Motorsports Park in 96 degree heat, Young held off the determined advances of Monster Energy Graves Yamaha’s Josh Hayes to win his fifth race of the year, and keep alive Suzuki’s winning streak that began in the second leg of the 2004 weekend.
Ever since then Suzuki has owned the track and this weekend was no different. M4 Suzuki’s Martin Cardenas won in mixed condition on Saturday and backed it up with a third on Sunday behind Young and Hayes, the only two title contenders remaining after Tommy Hayden had his worst weekend in years. Hayden was on the rebound from a distant seventh on Saturday and leading the race when his engine blew up spectacularly in a blaze of smoke and flames on the ninth lap. Hayden quickly pulled off the track and the race continued, but without him.
“Actually caught me by surprise,” Young said. “I was taking a glance over my shoulder and next thing you know I turn around and a big puff of smoke. I thought it kinda caught me by surprise, and I thought to myself, ‘No way they’re going to keep on running this race with the way that oil came out.’ But Tommy did a good job of getting the bike off the side of the track, getting it off the race line. And it took me a few turns to kinda get over that and proceed to keep on going and realize that they weren’t going to red flag it and there was still a race at hand to win.”
Hayden’s exit, his first mechanical DNF since joining the Yoshimura Suzuki team, put Young in the lead and he kept it for every lap but two, the 14th and 15th when Hayes forged past. But Young found an opening on lap 16 and renewed his reign at the front.
“I think at the end basically we were both kinda in hot water,” Hayes said. “We were both…was pretty hot, we were pretty tired. The bikes were getting extremely loose. I had probably more problems with the front than I did with the rear. When you don’t have a front tire it’s really tough to have the confidence to go after somebody and try to make something happen. Late in the race things are slippery.”
Over the final five laps Hayes looked for a mistake or an opening, a big one, which he’d need because of the state of his motorcycle.
“I don’t have the acceleration right now to get off the turns with him and I can’t counter what he can do,” Hayes said. “So when he’s in front of me, he has a pretty wide machine for me.”
He added, “Blake knew the areas where I was fast and I really thought maybe the end of the race would come my way a little bit, because it seemed like he was having to use his motorcycle a bit more than me to ride defensive the way he was.”
Over the final laps Young solidified his advantage, crossing the line with .765 sec. in hand. Cardenas was another three seconds back.
“I made the best run I could at him and made a few mistakes even on the last lap,” Hayes said. It added up a championship that’s starting over with four rounds to go. Hayes has 235 points to 233 for Young and 182 for Hayden. The rumors of a final round at Auto Club Speedway were addressed by series officials early in the weekend. On Sunday, a senior Daytona Motorsports Group official told at least one team manager that the race wouldn’t happen, which means the season will be nine rounds for all classes but the Vance & Hines XR1200s, which have a tenth round on the undercard of the Red Bull Indianapolis Grand Prix.
“I mean, this is what an exciting championship’s supposed to look like,” Hayes said about the series reset. “One thing that’ll make for exciting racing is we have to win. What good’s being careful going to do? We’ve got to just go out there and do like today and take chances, both of us, and ride with everything we’ve got and may the best man win.”
Young was the best man today after a day when he wasn’t at his best.
“I think we started off slow and I just really impressed myself with just putting in a good effort no matter what,” he said. “I think the guys are working hard for me and they’re dedicated to giving me a motorcycle every race that I can take towards the front, so I definitely can’t complain with that.”
Said Young’s crew chief and Rockstar Makita Suzuki team manager Peter Doyle, “I mean, obviously his mind was not quite with it all weekend, but you do what you can. But he rode good.”
The heat, Young agreed, was stifling. “I just kept thinking to myself if I’m hurting this bad and this tired, he’s got to be hurting too, so just keep after it. That’s what I just did. I knew Josh was going to be fast when he got to the front and he could hit his marks, but that was my race today was to get back to the front and stop him from doing that. So really happy.”
Cardenas played down his win on Saturday because of the conditions. But, he said, finishing third in the dry was “very nice, especially because of the gap of the two guys up front, so it feels very good.”
Superbike Results:
</br> 1. Blake Young (Suzuki)</br> 2. Josh Hayes (Yamaha)</br> 3. Martin Cardenas (Suzuki)</br> 4. Steve Rapp (BMW)</br> 5. Ben Bostrom (Suzuki)</br> 6. Larry Pegram (BMW)</br> 7. Geoff May (Buell)</br> 8. Chris Clark (Yamaha)</br> 9. Chris Peris (BMW)</br> 10. JD Beach (Kawasaki)</br>
Photo Gallery: 2011 AMA Pro Barber Motorsports Park Sunday Superbike race results - Young over Hayes - Sport Rider Magazine (http://www.sportrider.com/news/146_1106_2011_ama_pro_barber_sunday_race_results_young_over_hayes_at_barber/index.html)
2011 AMA Pro Barber Sunday Superbike race results—Young over Hayes at Barber (http://www.sportrider.com/news/146_1106_2011_ama_pro_barber_sunday_race_results_young_over_hayes_at_barber/index.html) | Digg It (http://digg.com/submit?phase=2&url=http://www.sportrider.com/news/146_1106_2011_ama_pro_barber_sunday_race_results_young_over_hayes_at_barber/index.html&title=2011 AMA Pro Barber Sunday Superbike race results—Young over Hayes at Barber) | Add to del.icio.us (http://del.icio.us/post?url=2&url=http://www.sportrider.com/news/146_1106_2011_ama_pro_barber_sunday_race_results_young_over_hayes_at_barber/index.html&title=2011 AMA Pro Barber Sunday Superbike race results—Young over Hayes at Barber)
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http://image.sportrider.com/f/news/146_1106_2011_ama_pro_barber_sunday_race_results_young_over_hayes_at_barber/37241220+ppromo_large/146-1106-+2011-ama-pro-barber-final-Sunday-results-young-wins+.jpg
Rockstar Makita Suzuki's Blake Young held off Monster Energy Graves Yamaha's Josh Hayes at Barber Motorsports Park (http://www.sportrider.com/news/146_1106_2011_ama_pro_barber_sunday_race_results_young_over_hayes_at_barber/index.html)BIRMINGHAM, AL, JUNE 19 – Rockstar Makita Suzuki’s Blake Young wasn’t at his best most of the weekend. The Wisconsinite put it to “personal issues,” which he didn’t elaborate on. What he did say was that they were resolved by Sunday. And it showed.
Over 21 laps of the undulating 2.38-mile Barber Motorsports Park in 96 degree heat, Young held off the determined advances of Monster Energy Graves Yamaha’s Josh Hayes to win his fifth race of the year, and keep alive Suzuki’s winning streak that began in the second leg of the 2004 weekend.
Ever since then Suzuki has owned the track and this weekend was no different. M4 Suzuki’s Martin Cardenas won in mixed condition on Saturday and backed it up with a third on Sunday behind Young and Hayes, the only two title contenders remaining after Tommy Hayden had his worst weekend in years. Hayden was on the rebound from a distant seventh on Saturday and leading the race when his engine blew up spectacularly in a blaze of smoke and flames on the ninth lap. Hayden quickly pulled off the track and the race continued, but without him.
“Actually caught me by surprise,” Young said. “I was taking a glance over my shoulder and next thing you know I turn around and a big puff of smoke. I thought it kinda caught me by surprise, and I thought to myself, ‘No way they’re going to keep on running this race with the way that oil came out.’ But Tommy did a good job of getting the bike off the side of the track, getting it off the race line. And it took me a few turns to kinda get over that and proceed to keep on going and realize that they weren’t going to red flag it and there was still a race at hand to win.”
Hayden’s exit, his first mechanical DNF since joining the Yoshimura Suzuki team, put Young in the lead and he kept it for every lap but two, the 14th and 15th when Hayes forged past. But Young found an opening on lap 16 and renewed his reign at the front.
“I think at the end basically we were both kinda in hot water,” Hayes said. “We were both…was pretty hot, we were pretty tired. The bikes were getting extremely loose. I had probably more problems with the front than I did with the rear. When you don’t have a front tire it’s really tough to have the confidence to go after somebody and try to make something happen. Late in the race things are slippery.”
Over the final five laps Hayes looked for a mistake or an opening, a big one, which he’d need because of the state of his motorcycle.
“I don’t have the acceleration right now to get off the turns with him and I can’t counter what he can do,” Hayes said. “So when he’s in front of me, he has a pretty wide machine for me.”
He added, “Blake knew the areas where I was fast and I really thought maybe the end of the race would come my way a little bit, because it seemed like he was having to use his motorcycle a bit more than me to ride defensive the way he was.”
Over the final laps Young solidified his advantage, crossing the line with .765 sec. in hand. Cardenas was another three seconds back.
“I made the best run I could at him and made a few mistakes even on the last lap,” Hayes said. It added up a championship that’s starting over with four rounds to go. Hayes has 235 points to 233 for Young and 182 for Hayden. The rumors of a final round at Auto Club Speedway were addressed by series officials early in the weekend. On Sunday, a senior Daytona Motorsports Group official told at least one team manager that the race wouldn’t happen, which means the season will be nine rounds for all classes but the Vance & Hines XR1200s, which have a tenth round on the undercard of the Red Bull Indianapolis Grand Prix.
“I mean, this is what an exciting championship’s supposed to look like,” Hayes said about the series reset. “One thing that’ll make for exciting racing is we have to win. What good’s being careful going to do? We’ve got to just go out there and do like today and take chances, both of us, and ride with everything we’ve got and may the best man win.”
Young was the best man today after a day when he wasn’t at his best.
“I think we started off slow and I just really impressed myself with just putting in a good effort no matter what,” he said. “I think the guys are working hard for me and they’re dedicated to giving me a motorcycle every race that I can take towards the front, so I definitely can’t complain with that.”
Said Young’s crew chief and Rockstar Makita Suzuki team manager Peter Doyle, “I mean, obviously his mind was not quite with it all weekend, but you do what you can. But he rode good.”
The heat, Young agreed, was stifling. “I just kept thinking to myself if I’m hurting this bad and this tired, he’s got to be hurting too, so just keep after it. That’s what I just did. I knew Josh was going to be fast when he got to the front and he could hit his marks, but that was my race today was to get back to the front and stop him from doing that. So really happy.”
Cardenas played down his win on Saturday because of the conditions. But, he said, finishing third in the dry was “very nice, especially because of the gap of the two guys up front, so it feels very good.”
Superbike Results:
</br> 1. Blake Young (Suzuki)</br> 2. Josh Hayes (Yamaha)</br> 3. Martin Cardenas (Suzuki)</br> 4. Steve Rapp (BMW)</br> 5. Ben Bostrom (Suzuki)</br> 6. Larry Pegram (BMW)</br> 7. Geoff May (Buell)</br> 8. Chris Clark (Yamaha)</br> 9. Chris Peris (BMW)</br> 10. JD Beach (Kawasaki)</br>
Photo Gallery: 2011 AMA Pro Barber Motorsports Park Sunday Superbike race results - Young over Hayes - Sport Rider Magazine (http://www.sportrider.com/news/146_1106_2011_ama_pro_barber_sunday_race_results_young_over_hayes_at_barber/index.html)
2011 AMA Pro Barber Sunday Superbike race results—Young over Hayes at Barber (http://www.sportrider.com/news/146_1106_2011_ama_pro_barber_sunday_race_results_young_over_hayes_at_barber/index.html) | Digg It (http://digg.com/submit?phase=2&url=http://www.sportrider.com/news/146_1106_2011_ama_pro_barber_sunday_race_results_young_over_hayes_at_barber/index.html&title=2011 AMA Pro Barber Sunday Superbike race results—Young over Hayes at Barber) | Add to del.icio.us (http://del.icio.us/post?url=2&url=http://www.sportrider.com/news/146_1106_2011_ama_pro_barber_sunday_race_results_young_over_hayes_at_barber/index.html&title=2011 AMA Pro Barber Sunday Superbike race results—Young over Hayes at Barber)
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