The value of every championship point was proven today, when Australia’s Mat Mladin moved into a tie for the lead in this year’s AMA Chevy Trucks US superbike Championship after securing his 28th career AMA superbike pole position at Brainerd International Raceway in Minnesota.

The three-times American Superbike champion now heads into tomorrow’s eleventh round of the championship tied on points with Team Kawasaki’s Eric Bostrom, with the pair having accumulated 294 apiece.

Mladin has been the fastest rider at Brainerd during both days of practice and qualifying and confirmed that position with the fastest time of the weekend, a 1-min 35.622 sec lap set in today’s second one-hour qualifying session at the fast 4.828km (3.00mile) Minnesota circuit.

“We did what we had to today to secure pole position, so we’re very happy with that,” said Mladin. “The track was a little bit warmer today, there’s a bit more rubber on the track and it’s getting better each day we’re here. One of the problems you have here during the race is breaking the draft from someone. If you are within a second you can hang on to them, so the plan will be to try and get that early break.”

Second fastest and the only other rider to dip into the 1:35 bracket was American Honda’s Miguel DuHamel who posted a best lap of 1:35.804. He was followed by Eric Bostrom (1:36.228), with Erion Honda’s Kurtis Roberts completing the front row with a time of 1:36.348. The top six riders were within a second of Mladin’s pole winning time, with teammate Aaron Yates (1:36.412) and series newcomer Giovanni Bussei (Ducati Austin, 1:36.572) completing the group.

Tyres have been a crucial area for Mladin’s campaign in 2003. A number of failures have meant that the team have had to work closely with tyre supplier Dunlop to find a combination that best suits the powerful new Suzuki GSX-R1000 the team is using this year. This weekend, Dunlop has supplied a number of new tyres for the team to test and Mladin has been happy with the tyres supplied.

“Dunlop have brought a few new tyres over for us to try and so far they look quite good. They’re trying to get the safety aspect of the tyres better. At this stage it looks as though we may race on one of the new tyres tomorrow, which is a good positive sign for us and Dunlop.”

The superbike riders take to the Brainerd circuit tomorrow for their 21-lap national which forms round 11 of the 18-round championship.

Superbike Qualifying, Overall (Top 10)
1. Mat Mladin (Yoshimura Suzuki) 1:35.622 mins
2. Miguel DuHamel (American Honda) 1:35.804
3. Eric Bostrom (Team Kawasaki) 1:36.228
4. Kurtis Roberts (Erion Honda) 1:36.348
5. Aaron Yates (Yoshimura Suzuki) 1:36.412
6. Giovanni Bussei (Ducati Austin) 1:36.572
7. Ben Bostrom (American Honda) 1:36.901
8. Steve Rapp (Valvoline EMGO Suzuki) 1:37.447
9. Jason Pridmore (Attack Suzuki) 1:37.760
10. Jordan Szoke (Corona Extra Suzuki) 1:38.706