AMA SuperBike & SuperSport Preview

Honda Racing's Nicky Hayden is fresh off two wins at Road Atlanta and a five-race win streak, and will arrive at PPIR this weekend for round eight of the AMA Chevy Trucks U.S. Superbike Championship.

The 20-year-old has a strong hold on the championship with 253 points and while it's still a little early to say, the 80-point advantage he has on second place factory Kawasaki rider, Eric Bostrom, makes him a favourite for his first AMA Superbike Championship.

Pikes Peak also marks Hayden's second chance to tie his team-mate Miguel Duhamel's six-consecutive win streak. The first chance came at rounds two and three at California Speedway but Yamaha's Anthony Gobert took the first win of the double-header event. Hayden is the defending Pikes Peak Superbike winner and with the season he's having, it's likely that he will defend his title as well as matching Duhamel's win streak.

Speaking of Hayden's team-mate, Duhamel had two superbike podiums at Road Atlanta with a second and third for the double-header weekend. Duhamel and his crew appear to have figured out a powerful combination in setup and tires and it wouldn't surprise many if he is the first rider in five races to stop Hayden's win streak.

Bostrom, currently residing in Las Vegas, is second in points and in a nail-biting, last-lap thriller at Road Atlanta, he too is showing to be a serious threat to Hayden's win streak. Bostrom's season didn't start out the way he had hoped but as evidenced at Atlanta, things are definitely turning around. Bostrom will arrive at Pikes Peak from England after his third showing in World Superbike at the Silverstone round with the Kawasaki World Superbike team.

The 2002 season has been no friend to three-time defending AMA Superbike Champion Mat Mladin of the Blimpie Yoshimura Suzuki team. While the injury to his elbow at the opening round in Daytona Beach, Fla., didn't help, he is past that and now the 30-year-old Australian has been fighting set-up and handling gremlins with his Suzuki GSX-R750. Sitting fifth in the point standings, the No. 1 Suzuki rider is still hopeful that a win is right around the corner.

"As many people would know, I'm not happy with how the season has started for myself and the team, but I can assure you that we won't be taking it lying down," said Mladin. "We are working hard to sort out the handling problem with the new bike and I think we made some more progress after the test at Road America last week."

"The start of the year has been a bit of a disaster," Mladin added. "But hopefully from this weekend, the second half of the year will be a form reversal for us. I don't like being the last factory bike across the line as I was at Road Atlanta, so that in itself is a good incentive to get things back on track. As far as the championship goes, everyone will need Nicky (Hayden) to have a couple of dnf's to bring him back to the field, to have a chance. For us, I think we will be using the second half of the year as a development program to make sure that we are on the pace for the start of the 2003 season. We were definitely caught out at the start of this year and that won't happen again."

Doug Chandler was last year's third place finisher at PPIR on a Kawasaki. He will return to the 1.32-mile race track looking for a repeat of last years podium, but this time it will be on a HMC Ducati 998. Chandler wasn't able to race the last two rounds at Road Atlanta after a crash in qualifying put him on the sidelines for the weekend.

Yamaha's Gobert will be out of racing action for at least five weeks after a fall in Superbike qualifying in Atlanta left him with a broken right fibula. Also still on the injured list is Erion Racing's Kurtis Roberts. Roberts is still recovering from an injury to his knee after falling at California Speedway. At his doctors have advised him to sit out the PPIR round.

Blimpie Yoshimura Suzuki's Aaron Yates still leads the Pro Honda Oils U.S. Supersport point standings with 142 despite his first loss of the season at Road Atlanta. The loss came after a race long battle with teammate Jamie Hacking. Yates finished third at Pikes Peak in 2001 and is looking to get back on a winning streak. Yates, along with Hacking now stand as the sole factory riders racing both supersport and superbike.

With Hacking coming off a win on his Blimpie Yoshimura Suzuki GSX-R600, he knows the feeling of victory and based on the battle he fought to the end at Road Atlanta with Yates, he can never be counted out as wanting the win just as bad as all the others.

Yamaha's Damon Buckmaster is third in the AMA Supersport point standings, and still remains a strong contender for the championship. Road Atlanta marked his third consecutive fourth place finish and there's no doubt that a podium finish is near.

Attack Suzuki's Ben Spies first year in Supersport is going well and much like Buckmaster, he has had three consecutive fifth-place finishes. It won't be long until you see this 17 year-old Longview, Texas native taking an AMA Supersport podium position.

Kawasaki's Tommy Hayden was Road Atlanta's third-place finisher in the fiercely competitive class and the oldest of the three Hayden brothers, Tommy knows his way around PPIR. He is looking for a podium in this year's event as he missed third last year by .025 seconds.