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2011 AMA Pro Barber Saturday Superbike race results—Cardenas breaks through

M4 Suzuki's Martin Cardenas wins his first AMA Superbike race at Barber Motorsports Park.BIRMINGHAM, AL, JUNE 18 – Rain interrupted Saturday’s Superbike race at Barber Motorsports Park, turning the championship on its head with an outcome no one could have predicted, not even the winner.

M4 Suzuki’s Martin Cardenas capped a sometimes rocky rookie Superbike season by winning his first Superbike race on the drying 2.38-mile road course outside of Birmingham, Alabama. Cardenas admitted he’d had some crashes during his learning curve, “but I think that happens when you try to go as fast as the front-runners because they’re very fast on each track, so sometimes it happens.� Today it didn’t.

The race began with a four-rider breakaway; Rockstar Makita Suzuki’s Tommy Hayden and Blake Young, Monster Energy Graves Yamaha’s Josh Hayes, and Roger Lee Hayden, resurgent on the National Guard Jordan Suzuki. The quartet broke away early and were mostly nose-to-tail for the first five laps, though the pace was off the qualifying times. When rain began to spit down on about the third lap the times weren’t affected, but when it picked up soon after the leaders started lap seven of 21, Hayden stopped the race.

After the race was stopped, the rain began to fall harder, then stopped, then fell harder again, dousing the track. The final would be 16 laps and it would start on a wet, but drying track, with the rain have long since stopped. Most riders opted for rain tires, but a few got caught out and others made interesting choices; Team Iron Horse ESP-BMW’s Chris Peris went with a rain front and a slick rear.

Young led a pack of six off the re-start, losing it to Roger Lee Hayden before Cardenas went to the top on the 12th lap. The Colombian grew the lead to 1.774 secs. on the 16th lap, with Jordan Suzuki’s Ben Bostrom in second having passed Young two laps earlier.

Bostrom gradually ate into Cardenas’ cushion, a tenth here, a tenth there, until he was ready to make his move on the final lap. Bostrom knew he was better than Cardenas in the final sequence, the looping double right followed by the hard left onto the front straight. Cardenas also knew he was vulnerable and reacted accordingly.

“He must have eyes in the back of his head. He’s so smart,� Bostrom said. “I was quite a bit quicker around the last section there. And we’d go around the long right and I went in there fast. I thought, ‘I’ll put it here, and then when he brakes he kinda moves and then I’ll just jam it in,’ but he stayed so low I couldn’t go under him,� so Bostrom had to improvise. Plan B was to go around the outside in the long right, but Cardenas could hear him coming and moved over, “so I had to swerve at the last minute and get a run at him and I got enough run for the finish, but he just brake checked me,� in the final left. “He literally just got off the gas and brake checked and then whacked the thing happen, because he knew, ‘Ben’s not going to center-punch me.’ What a bummer. He’s very savvy.�

Cardenas won his first Superbike race by .138 sec. Bostrom was second with Young third, about 1.9 secs. later.

“It feels great,� Cardenas said. “It’s always great to win, whatever class you are. To win on Superbike is a little bit different because it’s a little bit more special because the bike is more difficult to ride.�

Cardenas rained on his own parade by downplaying the win because of the conditions, saying “it’s different to win in the dry than in the wet, so this is good, but if it was in the dry it would be much better. But I’m very happy for me and for my team, because they’ve been changing a lot of stuff, so I can ride the bike.�

Bostrom was coming off his worst weekend with the Jordan Suzuki team-he had electrical issues in both races at Road America-and the two prior weekends weren’t great either. The second place finish was his best of the year. His previous best was fourth at Daytona. Today’s race didn’t start well. A riding error on the first lap of the first start sent him careening off the track and reviving memories of recent failures. But he gathered himself up and rode smartly in the rain.

“It felt weird to cross the finish line,� Bostrom said. “Actually I’ll tell you what, when I ran off the track I said here we go again. And then we re-attached to these leaders and there’s no better feeling, I promise, no drugs that good, to see the front and play with the boys. It’s pretty special.�

And where was reigning champion and points leader Josh Hayes? The Monster Energy Graves Yamaha rider was fourth after visibility problems in the spray held him back.

“The helmet set-up that I chose, I would’ve probably been better off to get all my tear-offs off and wipe it with my hand, rather than just trying to look through whatever was dried on the thing, which I was doing,� he said. “It made visibility a little tough; I couldn’t tell the dry parts from the wet parts. I had to kinda memorize it by feel more than look at it.�

The vision problems caused him to make a lot of mistakes and ride less aggressively. “I rode careful and in doing that I chickened out in a couple of key places,� he admitted. “Every time I dropped off it seemed like I ran them back down pretty quick, so I could do the pace and I could get in there.

“I’m having a hard time passing. Our gearing for this bike, the way it rolls around the track the fastest, it doesn’t work really well for passing. These guys are able to really get that launch. We’d talked about it before where they just kinda get that big jump that’s hard to catch up to.

Hayes wasn’t sure where he was going to try to make the last lap pass of Blake Young, “but I just made a stupid mistake. He was staying real far left on the track and I was kinda wondering whether he was going to scoot back right on the brakes and I was looking at him and all of a sudden it was like he sat up on the brakes and I went, ‘Oh no.’ By the time I grabbed the brakes I was so far in front of him going down the hill; not where I wanted to be. I was squeezing as hard as I could, but the front end was, on those rains, braking that hard just didn’t feel real good, so I just couldn’t bend the thing again, so chickened out again, made sure I kept it upright, rode the thing home fourth.�

The day ended with Hayes still in the points lead with 210 to 202 for Young. Tommy Hayden lost ground in third-he now has 182 points.

Foremost Insurance’s Larry Pegram equaled his season best finish by coming fifth, well behind the leaders. He’d been fifth twice earlier this season.

National Guard Jordan Suzuki’s Roger Lee Hayden, who led for one lap, dropped back to finish sixth with a suspect front tire.

Roger Lee’s older brother Tommy had no excuses for finishing seventh. He said he never felt right in the rain during practice or the race after finishing 48 secs. behind the winner.

Cycle World/Attack Performance’s JD Beach had his best Superbike finish by coming home eighth.

AMA Pro Road Race Superbike Results:

</br> 1. Martin Cardenas (Suzuki)</br> 2. Ben Bostrom (Suzuki)</br> 3. Blake Young (Suzuki)</br> 4. Josh Hayes (Yamaha)</br> 5. Larry Pegram (BMW)</br> 6. Roger Lee Hayden (Suzuki)</br> 7. Tommy Hayden (Suzuki)</br> 8. JD Beach (Kawasaki)</br> 9. Trent Gibson (Suzuki)</br> 10. Jeremy Toye (BMW) </br>


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