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World Superbike Miller Motorsports Park Race Two—Checa crashes, Melandri wins

BMW gets its second victory of the season as Marco Melandri takes win after Carlos Checa crashes out of the lead; Jonathan Rea a close second, Max Biaggi third, John Hopkins 16th, Jake Holden 18th, wildcard Shane Turpin 19thTOOELE, UTAH, MAY 28 – Marco Melandri gave BMW Motorrad their best ever World Superbike results at Miller Motorsports Park by adding a second leg win to his first race second place.

The company had never finished higher than fifth before this weekend, but they also didn’t have Melandri. The Italian who brought his MotoGP experience and some key personnel to the team has gradually been improving the S 1000 RR. The team took their first win two weeks ago at Donington Park with Leon Haslam and today, though Haslam wasn’t a factor, Melandri was. Especially in the second race.

The second race at Miller began on time at 3:30 p.m. local time, but was stopped on the fourth of 21 laps when Honda’s Hiroshi Aoyama fell, his CBR1000RR spilling fluids on the track. The cleanup took more than an hour and it was nearly 90 minutes before the World Superbike race two was green-flagged.

Melandri got away second, then took over the lead when Race One runaway winner Carlos Checa tucked the front end on lap six. Melandri then came under fire from both Johnny Rea (Honda) and Chaz Davies (ParkinGO MTC Racing Aprilia) on lap 11, dropping to third.

The Italian took back on spot on the 13th lap, passing Davies—who was having his best World Superbike ride of the year—and setting out after Rea.

Using the power advantage of the BMW, he drafted into the lead entering Miller's turn one, rebuffed an attack from Rea, then held him off to the line, winning by 0.195 seconds. Rea was second with Aprilia’s Max Biaggi third, having passed Davies on the 16th of 18 laps.




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