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2011 AMA Pro Mid-Ohio Friday Superbike qualifying results—Hayes on top

Monster Energy Graves Yamaha's Josh Hayes fastest in qualifying...again.LEXINGTON, OHIO, JULY 8 – In his very first visit to the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course in 1999, Josh Hayes eclipsed some better known riders to take the pole position for the Formula Xtreme race.

Riding an 840cc Valvoline EMGO Suzuki, Hayes took the pole from Honda riders Nicky Hayden and Kurtis Roberts, both of whom had been at Mid-Ohio. In the years since, Hayes has seven victories on the 2.4-mile, 15-turn road course, including wins in three of the last four Superbike races.

Today he took his first step towards adding to that total. On an 84 degree summer day, Hayes strung together a series of three laps in the 1:25’s, the first of which was the fastest, and waited for the competition to respond. They did in the form of Blake Young, the Rockstar Makita Suzuki rider. Young was on a flyer before getting held up by a backmarker, which slowed him just enough to let Hayes keep his perfect record of bragging rights in every qualifying session this season.

Hayes arrived at the track with all five poles and the points that go with them, which is the difference, along with the laps led points-he has six of those-in the championship. In advance of this weekend’s two races of the seven remaining, he has a two point lead over Young, 235 to 233.

“We did our time fairly early in the session and we looked at the gap and I said, ‘Hey, let’s work on the motorcycle, let’s continue on this tire and put race distance on it and see what happens.’ If they catch us, that’s OK, we’ll just have to work on going faster tomorrow,’� Hayes said. “Sounds like Blake (Young) had a good lap going that was probably going to be good enough and got balked up a little bit. So fortunately for me, I was able to do a pretty good string of laps. I did three or four 25’s kind of right together and then came in, made some changes, went back and low 26’s again fairly comfortably. And then you just get to trolling around out there and seeing a lot of people, a lot of things going on. So came in, practiced a start. Just kind of wanted to run through all the things we’re going to have for the races.

“It looks like tomorrow we’ll have to try to figure out how to go a little bit faster. So I think that some of the changes that we made that allowed us to go pretty good on a five to ten lap tire, I think might help us go a little faster when we have a fresh one, so it should be a little cooler in the morning tomorrow, which has always been pretty good for lap times. We’ll just go at it like that.�

As to what it is about the track that suited Hayes, he said, “I don’t know,� before mentioning the 1999 race. “The flow of the race track, the elevation, it’s been a good one for me, you know. It’s funny, because when I think of this race track, I don’t think of it necessarily as one of mine, I think of it as Aaron Yates’ track.� Yates won a Supersport and two Superstock races, but never a Superbike race. “He always seemed to dig deep and find something and go well. So I guess I’m in good company, if you talk about it that way.

“It’s a fun race track. It’s one that everybody enjoys showing up to and has a good variety and has some really fast stuff, some slow stuff, a nice long straightaway. It has everything that we like and love to do racing motorcycles and so I always kind of show up here with a smile on my face and like going around this race track.�

Young ended up provisionally second at .074 sec. in front of the Hayden brothers, National Guard Jordan Suzuki’s Roger Lee in third and Tommy fourth on the Rockstar Makita Suzuki.

San Diego BMW’s Steve Rapp was third for much of the session before being demoted by the Haydens. If he stays fifth, it will match his best qualifying effort of the season from his BMW debut at Infineon Raceway.

Foremost Insurance-backed Ohioan Larry Pegram (BMW) was sixth fastest in his home race, with Martin Cardenas seventh on the M4 Suzuki. Cardenas spent some of the time since the previous race at Barber Motorsports Park taking in the Italian Grand Prix in Mugello, where he raced a 250 in 2004 and 2005.

Jordan Suzuki’s Ben Bostrom was eighth fastest in front of two more European bikes, the Team Iron Horse BMW-ESP S 1000 RR of Canadian Chris Peris and Chris Fillmore, the former Supermoto champion making his Superbike debut on the HMC/KTM Racing KTM RC8R.




Photo Gallery: 2011 AMA Pro Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course provisional qualifying results—Hayes fastest - Sport Rider Magazine


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