American SuperBike 2001 - Round 11 - Brainerd

Australia's Mat Mladin has secured his eighth consecutive pole position in this years AMA Chevy Trucks US Superbike Championship, breaking the former record of seven consecutive poles set by former World champions Doug Polen and Wayne Rainey.

Mladin posted the fastest time during the final qualifying session for round 11 of the championship which is being held at the fast 4.83km (3.0 mile) Brainerd International Raceway, with the Australian pushing his Team Yoshimura Suzuki GSX-R750 to a time of 1-min 35.320-seconds. In setting his 23rd AMA career pole position, Mladin also broke the Superbike lap record at the Brainerd circuit that was previously held by John Kocinski (Ducati) with a time of 1:35.60.

The next milestone for Mladin to achieve will be to break Mike Baldwin's record of nine pole positions in a single set that was set in 1983.

Three team American Honda RC-51's chased Mladin's Suzuki to complete the front row of the grid. Miguel DuHamel was second fastest with a time of 1:36.073, followed by Nicky Hayden (1:35.270) and Kurtis Roberts (1:36.694). Team Kawasaki's Eric Bostrom will head the second row of the grid as he attempts to bridge the 46-point lead that Mladin has over him in the championship.

Qualifying for Brainerd was disrupted when heavy rain fell at the circuit on Friday and forced officials to cancel the opening qualifying session, leaving Saturday afternoon's session as the all-important single opportunity to set a time for the race. Mladin was the fastest rider in both of the free practice sessions and turned that into pole position during qualifying.

"I'm very happy to have come away with another pole position and to have broken that record," said Mladin. "It is nice to break records such as that, but more importantly, there is a championship point for each of those, so that has given me another eight points, which could make all the difference in a championship."

"The track was a little slippery and `green' due to the rain and the lack of rubber on the surface, but I think it should be fine for tomorrow afternoon's race," added Mladin. "We have had a few more of the clutch problems that have plagued us at the last two rounds, but hopefully we have that sorted now. We have reverted back to some parts from last year and used them in the final qualifying session. They seemed to work and we'll use them in the race tomorrow."