Mladin's first ever race win at the 3.86km (2.4mile) Mid-Ohio circuit came as he beat home main championship rival, Eric Bostrom (Team Kawasaki) by 1.864-seconds at the conclusion of 26 laps. The Team Yoshimura Suzuki rider now leads the AMA Superbike Championship by an extended margin of 30-points over Bostrom (298 to 268).

Today's race was the first of the Superbike `Double Header' round at Mid-Ohio, with the second race (Round 10 of the championship) being held tomorrow afternoon.

Mladin and his Team Yoshimura Suzuki crew got their weekend off to a great start as they first, cured a problem that had raised its head at the previous round at Laguna Seca, before securing a seventh pole position with a new Superbike lap record. The early problem was traced to a faulty clutch that was engaging when it shouldn't have been. With that fixed, Mladin set the fastest time during Friday's opening qualifying session, before breaking the lap record during today's final qualifying session with a time of 1-min 36.498-secs, almost a second quicker than the previous record.

With temperatures soaring (track surface temp was 53 degrees C) Mladin was third into the first turn in today's race, headed by Bostrom and teammate Jamie Hacking. Two laps later he was second and on lap four passed Bostrom for the lead. The two times defending AMA Champion then showed the speed of his Suzuki as he was able to ease away from the field, stretching his lead out to almost four seconds. He then eased the pace at the front on the final lap to cross the line 1.8 seconds clear of Bostrom, with Nicky Hayden (American Honda) a further 10 seconds adrift in third.

"We've been fast all weekend and the Suzuki is running strong," said Mladin after taking his fourth race win of the season. "We found the clutch problem with the bike early on Friday and we were then able to get down to setting some fast lap times. As it has been all year, it was great to grab pole position once again and the extra championship point that goes with it. As for the race, I got a good start and it only took a few laps before I was able to get to the lead. From that point I was able to stretch it out depending on how much traffic I came up against. In the end, it was my first race win here and I'm very happy with that and I will be aiming at a second tomorrow afternoon."