American SuperBike 2001 - Round 3 - Road Atlanta - Final Qualifying/Grid
| Mat Mladin reached yet another milestone in his racing career Saturday by tying Doug Polen for the record number of AMA Chevy Trucks U.S. Superbike poles. Mladin turned a Road Atlanta lap-record time of one minute, 22.735 seconds at 110.522 M.P.H. on his No. 1 Yoshimura Suzuki to win the pole for today’s and Sunday’s Superbike races. The pole is the 18th in AMA Superbike for Mladin who came to the AMA series in 1996. That ties him with Polen, a now-retired champion from Texas, who won the bulk of his poles during the late-1980s through the early-1990s.
Mladin, 29, was pleased to extended his series lead by one point by earning the pole. The Aussie has won the pole at all three Superbike races so far this season. He was the only rider able to get down into the 1:22 bracket. “The bike is a second and a half better here than it was last year,” Mladin remarked. “The extra point for the pole is what really counts. I imagine the other riders were pretty surprised that I did four more laps on the same tires after I turned the fast time of the session. The weather had a bit to do with the time. It wasn’t all that cooler, but it was a little more overcast today.” Californian Eric Bostrom moved up the qualifying ladder to put his factory Kawasaki second on the grid with a time of 1:23.217. One of the local favourites Aaron Yates will start third on another Yoshimura Suzuki with a 1:23.226 and Mladin’s countryman Anthony Gobert will finish out the front-row starters. Gobert clocked a 1:23.246 on his factory Yamaha. |
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| Above is where they will
start but rain fell in the early afternoon so the boys then headed out
for wet practice which then saw Gobert fastest.
Wet afternoon practice |
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