Superbike Preview

Three-time AMA Superbike Champion Mathew Mladin will try to become the first four-time champ in series history this weekend, Sept. 19-21, at the AMA Chevy Trucks U.S. Superbike Championship presented by Parts Unlimited doubleheader at Barber Motorsports Park near Birmingham, Ala.

Mladin, 31, is hoping to accomplish a goal that AMA racing legends Reg Pridmore, Fred Merkel and Doug Chandler were never able to fulfill. All three were three-time AMA Superbike champs and all three tried to win a fourth title, but came up short.

Mladin is almost a lock to win his fourth. Coming into this weekend’s doubleheader Mladin has a commanding 37-point lead over Yoshimura Suzuki teammate Aaron Yates. Honda’s Ben Bostrom, third in the championship point standings, is the only other rider with a mathematical chance of winning the title. Mladin needs just 38 points in the final two rounds to clinch the title. A win is worth 36 points. In addition a point is awarded for winning the pole and for leading the most laps in each race.

This weekend’s event will mark the debut of AMA Superbike racing at the new Barber Motorsports Park. The 700-acre complex is a state-of-the-art facility and already considered one of the premier road courses in the country. This weekend will also feature the opening of the Barber Vintage Motorsports Museum, which houses one of the largest collections of rare, vintage and racing motorcycles in the world.

Mladin has the opportunity to rewrite a number of AMA Superbike records at Barber. In addition to possibly becoming the first four-time champion, the Aussie also can break the single season AMA Superbike wins record of 10, a record he currently shares with Fred Merkel. If Mladin manages to win both of the season-ending rounds at Barber he would tie Miguel Duhamel on the all-time AMA Superbike wins list. Duhamel currently leads the list with 26-career Superbike wins; Mladin has 24 coming into the Barber doubleheader. Mladin was the fastest Superbike rider in testing at Barber earlier this summer.

If Mladin has any superstition in him at all he might be suffering some sleepless nights in the week leading up to Barber. The previous three-time AMA Superbike champions all met with nothing but tough luck in their quest to become four-time champs. Pridmore won the first three AMA Superbike titles, but when trying to earn his fourth title in 1979 Pridmore sustained serious injuries and even though he might have been able to come back he was 40-years-old at the time and decided it was better to retire from racing. Merkel left the U.S. after winning his third AMA Superbike title in 1986. The Californian went on to win a pair of World Superbike Championships before returning to race the AMA series again in 1994. Merkel tried unsuccessfully for two years to win a fourth AMA Superbike title, like Pridmore he decided to hang up his leathers after a bad crash at the end of the 1995 season and retired to a ranch in New Zealand. The other three-time AMA Superbike champion Doug Chandler came the closest to winning a fourth title. After winning his third in 1997 he finished runner-up in the series to Ben Bostrom in 1998. Chandler continued trying to capture the elusive fourth title in the coming years, and even though he now seems to have turned his attention to AMA Supermoto racing, the 37-year-old veteran hasn’t closed the book on trying to come back to Superbike racing.

While Mladin has been dominant this season with 10 wins, four other riders have earned victories this season. Miguel Duhamel, Eric Bostrom, Aaron Yates and Kurtis Roberts all have stood atop the podium this year. Roberts finally earned his first AMA Superbike win in his 34th-career race. Some believe now that Roberts has finally won a race the flood gates may open and he could be the rider to beat in the final two rounds at Barber.

Duhamel has plenty of incentive to win at Barber. The Canadian likes being the all-time AMA Superbike wins leader and he’s likely to turn in a pair of very strong rides trying to protect that record from Mladin.

Duhamel’s Honda teammate Bostrom also has a strong desire to win this weekend. If there is one curse in AMA Superbike racing it seems to be the curse of riders returning from World Superbike competition. The aforementioned Merkel, who at the time was the all-time AMA Superbike wins leader, never won another AMA Superbike race after he returned from World Superbike competition. The same can be said of Doug Polen and Scott Russell. Three of the most talented and respected riders in the history of Superbike racing were not able to string together a single victory between them after coming back from the World Superbike Series. Bostrom hopes to escape that curse and take his first home win since coming back from three seasons of World Superbike.

Supersport Preview

Jamie Hacking and Damon Buckmaster are both looking to win their first AMA Championship this weekend as the 2003 Pro Honda Oils U.S. Supersport Championship presented by Shoei concludes this Sunday, Sept. 21, at Barber Motorsports Park.

A mere 15 points separates the two Yamaha teammates coming into the final round. And while Hacking and Buckmaster happen to be teammates, there has been a fair amount of tension between the two this season. Each has criticized the other at times this year, perhaps owing in part to the pressures both racing veterans feel in their quest to earn their first titles. Regardless of the occasional ill feelings toward one another, Hacking and Buckmaster have been the class of AMA Supersport this year.

Hacking comes into the season finale with a series-leading four wins. The British-born South Carolinian needs to finish eighth or better to secure the championship. Hacking is in his seventh year of AMA Pro Racing and ever since he burst onto the scene by winning the pole and leading his very first AMA race -- the Pro Honda Supersport race in Phoenix in 1997 -- big things have been expected of him. A perennial frontrunner, Hacking has never been able to put together a complete season until this year. Who could blame him if he feels the pressure of being on the verge of winning his first championship?

“I’ve never been in this position so I really don’t know what to expect,” said Hacking who is tied with Doug Polen for fourth on the all-time AMA Supersport wins list. “I’m just going out there and do the best I can. I’ve put myself in a position to win this championship and I don’t want to take any chances, but at the same time this field is so competitive that if you get too relaxed you’ll find yourself finishing out of the top 10. It’s pressure, no doubt, but I’ve just got to put that out of my head and ride like I have been all year.”

Buckmaster has tallied an impressive five podium finishes in the series and broke through to win his first AMA Supersport race last month in Alton, Va. That win couldn’t have come at a better time for Buckmaster. The championship was slipping away and his first victory suddenly put him back in the thick of the title chase. The 30-year-old Australian knows that every point is precious this weekend. Look for him to make a hard push to try to earn the pole point and attempt to take the early lead in the final in an attempt to earn the lap-leader point as well. Buckmaster is also in contention for the Lockhart-Phillips Formula Xtreme Series title.

“Yamaha is guaranteed one and two in the championship either way,” said Buckmaster. “I would love to end the season on a winning note.”

With either Hacking or Buckmaster, Yamaha will claim back the U.S. Supersport title it last owned in 1994 with Jamie James. The Supersport championship has traditionally been the closest competition in AMA Pro road racing.

Other riders hope to end the season with a victory even if the championship is out of reach. Suzuki’s Ben Spies has been called the future of American road racing by many in the motorcycle racing press. Spies, is third in the Supersport standings on a bike that is already considered outdated in the fast-moving world of Supersport racing -- even though it was the same machine that carried Aaron Yates to the championship last year. Spies would like to put an exclamation point with a win at Barber. Others to watch for at Barber include the Kawasaki duo of Tommy Hayden and Tony Meiring and Honda aces Jake Zemke and Miguel Duhamel.

FX Preview

This series is Ben Spies’ to win or lose. Since moving to the factory Yoshimura Suzuki team this year Spies has blossomed into the leading up-and-coming rider in AMA road racing. After going through a bout of what he called overconfidence mid-season, Spies has come back strong with three straight Formula Xtreme victories. Now only Graves Yamaha’s Damon Buckmaster has what could be best described as a long-shot at winning the title he’s tried so hard to get for three years. Unless Spies fails to finish it appears that Buckmaster will once again walk away thinking “what if”. Buckmaster, who narrowly lost the Formula Xtreme title in 2001 and 2002, led the series for much of this season before Spies made his rally. One consolation for Buckmaster, should he win at Barber, will be the satisfaction that he would tie Kurtis Roberts and Eric Bostrom atop the all-time AMA Formula Xtreme wins list.

Genuine Suzuki Accessories Superstock

After opening the Genuine Suzuki Accessories Superstock season with an 11th and 10th-place finish in the first two rounds, no one considered Attack Suzuki’s Josh Hayes a serious contender for the title. However, a second-place result at Road Atlanta made some sit up and take notice of Hayes. Then the rider from Gulfport, Miss., put together a solid run of five-straight podium finishes, including wins at Monterey, Calif., and Lexington, Ohio, which catapulted him to the top of the standings. Conversely Kawasaki’s Tommy Hayden looked to be a shoo-in for the series title after winning the opening three rounds of the series aboard a specially built for Superstock ZX636. But then a mid-season slump that saw Hayden miss the podium in four straight races cost the Kentuckian the series lead.

The top two riders had a great showdown last month at Virginia International Raceway in Alton, Va. Hayden held on to win his fourth Superstock race of the year over Hayes, but Hayes cited caution as part of his explanation of why he didn’t make a strong move for the lead late in the Virginia race. “I had to be smart at VIR and come out of there with the points lead,” Hayes said of the VIR race. “There are still 17 laps to go in this championship. When we get to Barber it will be a different story and I’ll take a few more chances to make sure I win the series.”

Hayden, the oldest of the three racing Hayden brothers, is trying to become the first rider to win the AMA Superstock Series on a machine with less than 750cc engine displacement. In addition to trying to win his first AMA Pro Championship, Hayden is hoping to give Kawasaki its first Superstock title (in past years known as the 750 Supersport) since Scott Russell won the series in 1992. Suzuki wants to prevent that from happening.

Still in the AMA Superstock Championship picture is Czech native Haskovec. The Hooters Suzuki rider is a first-time winner in the series this season and has become a fan favourite for his sheer enthusiasm for racing.

Mladin Preview

An unprecedented fourth American Superbike Championship title lies in waiting for Australian Mat Mladin, with this year’s AMA Chevy Trucks US Superbike Championship winding down this weekend with the final double-header round of the series taking place at Barber Motorsports Park, near Birmingham, Alabama.

Having won three consecutive AMA Superbike titles from 1999 to 2001, the 31-year-old currently holds that distinction with three legends of the sport, Reg Pridmore, Fred Merkel and Doug Chandler.

The Australian and his Yoshimura Suzuki GSX-R1000 have been the dominant force in this year’s championship, having won ten of the sixteen races held to date, but his season has not been without it’s problems as the increasing performance levels of modern Superbikes push the boundaries of components and more specifically tyres. A number of tyre failures during the season have cost Mladin valuable championship points while holding down a strong on-track position, but his experience and determination have seen his team overcome a number of these hurdles to place themselves in a strong position as they head into the final round of the championship.

Mladin will arrive at Alabama holding a 37-point lead in the championship over his Yoshimura Suzuki teammate Aaron Yates, with the pair a further 24-points clear of American Honda’s Ben Bostrom. Given the importance of the weekend, Mladin will have a number of race and championship scenarios on his mind as he takes to the new 16-turn 3.70km (2.3 miles) circuit which makes its first appearance on the AMA Superbike calendar.

“It’s going to be one of those weekends, where I’ve got a good points lead heading into the round and will only need to bring it home to wrap up the championship and then there’s a chance to go out and break some records as well,” said Mladin. “Having won ten races this year, I’ve been able to equal the all-time wins in a season record, so there’s a chance to come away with a record there and then there’s the all-time career win record where I’m two races short of that mark. So there’s a bit of pressure from those people interested in record books, but for me, it’s like I’ve said all year, the championship title is the one thing that we all want, not only from a personal level, but also from a team and Suzuki point of view.”

“I would love to win a couple more races, but it will be difficult to put all of the hard work that the team has done all year on the line just to win a race while a championship is there for us. At the end it will be a case of playing it smart and doing what it takes to win the championship.”

“We found that the Alabama circuit was tough on tyres when we tested there, so given the problems that we have had this year with tyres, we will need to come up with a race plan that gets us through. It’s a nice facility, but I honestly feel that it’s a bit tight for Superbike racing.”

Mladin’s on-track performances this season have seen him close in on, equal and extend a number of AMA records. His 30 career pole positions sees him well clear as the fastest qualifier in AMA Superbike, while his tally of 24 career race wins has him just two short of Miguel DuHamel's all-time record of 26, ten of which were won this year, equally the all-time season win record held by former AMA and World Superbike champion Fred Merkel.

Qualifying for this weekend’s final round commences on Friday, with the final grid positions being determined during Saturday mornings second and final qualifying session prior to the opening 28-lap race which takes place later in the afternoon. The eighteenth and final AMA Superbike race of the season will then take place on Sunday afternoon.

Column - Peter Doyle's entertaining column on the state of play in American Superbike