As the season draws to a close, Mladin (the winner of four races this year) holds a 16-point lead over nearest rival, Kawasaki mounted Eric Bostrom after what has been a season-long battle between the pair.

The tragic events in America over the past fortnight has changed the complexion of the championship, which saw the penultimate round scheduled for Willow Springs being cancelled. Mladin now is in a position where he only has to finish ninth or better aboard his Team Yoshimura Suzuki GSX-R750 in the final race to win the championship if Bostrom gains maximum points from the round.

"Things are slowly getting back to normal here in America, but I will say that I am a bit nervous, as everyone else is, about flying across to the east coast this weekend," said Mladin. "In a lot of ways I am looking forward to getting everything done this weekend and heading back to Australia."

"I'll be treating this weekend the same as I've done at every round so far this year, with all emphasis on winning the championship. I will be looking at getting pole on Saturday, but then Sunday will be a tactical one where I'll be watching closely where Eric (Bostrom) is on the track. Aside from that I expect it to be as close as it has all year."

This weekend's 150km, 42-lap race at VIR will be the only other round other than the season opener in Daytona (which Mladin won) that will include pit stops.

"We (the Yoshimura Suzuki team) have been in endurance trim for the past few races, using components and strategy that we normally use at Daytona just to make sure things go right this weekend. The guys have been working on their pit stop technique and I'm sure we will be right for the weekend. The race itself should be fine. It's not so much an endurance race, only that it has a pit stop, however I guess we will still be looking at conserving the revs and tyres to make sure that we are there at the end."