Yoshimura Suzuki’s Mat Mladin won his 11th AMA Superbike race of the season at Road Atlanta in Braselton, Georgia today, tying his own record for most AMA Superbike race wins in a single season and recording his 62nd career AMA Superbike win.
Team mate and defending champion Ben Spies finished in second place after a crash and a red flag which resulted in Spies re-starting from the back of the grid. In spite of this, he worked his way through the field to finish on the podium behind Mladin.
Tommy Hayden was running in an impressive fourth position when another rider made contact with him and he went down: He re-entered the race and charged hard to make it up to the top 10 before the race’s end.
Mat Mladin:
“It was a good race for us today and it was good to get the win. To have 11 wins for the year, well, it’s been a pretty good season so far. We’re definitely looking at trying to win another race tomorrow. Before the red flag today we had a good pace on the Yoshimura Suzuki GSX-R1000. There were places where Ben was very strong but I knew that we were strong also in a few spots. We were doing our best to just try and eke it out and try to put as much pressure on Ben as possible. He knows that he wants to win the championship a lot more than I do and he knows that you’ve got to win races if you’re going to win the championship so he’s got to get going. That’s made for good racing out there and we’re looking forward to tomorrow. Hopefully, we can put on a good show. “
Ben Spies:
“We had pretty good speed on the Yoshimura Suzuki GSX-R1000 before the re-start. That was just a little mistake; the way I threw the bike in there or something. After I got back to the pits I saw the bike wasn’t torn up too bad. I looked at the lap times and told the guys that we could at least go out and get second place today. I set a couple decent laps in the beginning and tried to be as patient as possible. All together, coming in second isn’t too bad after crashing and coming back from last place. Tomorrow we’ve got to find a little speed. We’re close but we need to find something for a little edge. “
Tommy Hayden:
“I’ve felt pretty good all weekend. In fact, this is the best I’ve felt in a while. I was looking forward to the race and I knew the start would be important and I got good starts both times. I got a good start in the first start and a really good one in the second. Then another rider took me out and that pretty much put an end to my race. After that I tried to get back up in case there was another red flag and I could try and get another good start or if not, just try and get as many points as I could. “
AMA Superbike Top 10 Finishers:
1. Mat Mladin (Yoshimura Suzuki)
2. Ben Spies (Yoshimura Suzuki)
3. Jamie Hacking (Kawasaki)
4. Aaron Yates (Jordan Suzuki)
5. Jake Zemke (Honda)
6. Roger Hayden (Kawasaki)
7. Matt Lynn (MV Agusta)
8. Luca Scassa (MV Agusta)
9. Jake Holden (Jordan Suzuki)
10. Tommy Hayden (Yoshimura Suzuki)
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