Mat Mladin not only returned to the winners podium today, but regained the points lead in the 2003 AMA Chevy Trucks US Superbike Championship after a titanic three-way battle saw Mladin take the chequered flag in the first of the weekend’s double header Superbike races at Road America in Wisconsin.

Mladin’s 20th career AMA Superbike win was also his sixth for the season and sees him regain the number one position on the points table, fifteen points clear of Eric Bostrom (Team Kawasaki). Point’s leader coming into the round, Aaron Yates, was forced out of the race with mechanical problems and has slipped back to fifth on the point’s table.

It was a good day for Mladin and his Yoshimura Suzuki GSX-R1000. Prior to the 16-lap Superbike race, he had scored his 28th career AMA Superbike pole position with a time of 2-min 15.159-secs for the 6.44km (4.00miles) Wisconsin circuit during the morning’s final qualifying session. Second fastest was Mladin’s teammate Aaron Yates (2:15.710), followed by Kurtis Roberts (Erion Honda, 2:15.825) and Eric Bostrom (Team Kawasaki, 2:16.030).

The 16-lap Superbike race quickly turned into a furious high-speed battle between Suzuki mounted Mladin and the Honda’s of Miguel DuHamel and Kurtis Roberts, with each taking turn at holding the race lead. Mladin kept his best for last as his final lap produced an amazing new lap record of 2:14.740 which saw him pass DuHamel at Turn Five on his way to his sixth race victory of the season. At the end, just 0.79 of a second separated Mladin from DuHamel and Roberts.

“That was probably the best race that I’ve had for a long time,” said Mladin. “This year we’ve either won races by a long margin or have had tyre problems that have kept us out of it, so it was nice to go out there and race against a few guys. Mind you I wouldn’t want that every race, but every now and then would be good.

"About half way round the final lap I was able to get by Miguel, then after that I just put my head down and did the fastest lap of the race,” added Mladin. “Obviously from the time we set on the last lap, the bike is working well. We took a few measures before the race to make sure the tyre was going to be OK, we didn’t have the best grip that we could have had and definitely didn’t have the ultimate set up with the bike, but it was the best we could do to get the bike and the tyres to last the race distance.”

“Honda do well here, so we were expecting a bit of a race from them, but we’ll see how we go when we get to a track with a few more corners in them. It did show however that the horsepower between the Honda and the Suzuki is quite similar which at the end is all good for the series.”

Heading into tomorrow’s second 16-lap Superbike race, Mladin holds a fifteen-point lead (272 – 257) in the championship over Eric Bostrom who finished thirteenth today after he made a late race pit stop. Roberts holds down third with 250; followed by Ben Bostrom (248), Yates (244) and DuHamel (219).

2003 AMA Chevy Trucks US Superbike Championship (Points after 9 of 18 Rounds) : 1. Mladin, 272 points; 2. Eric Bostrom, 257; 3. Roberts, 250; 4. Ben Bostrom, 248; 5. Yates, 244; 6. DuHamel, 219; 7. Higbee, 183; 8. Pegram, 182; 9. Pridmore, 175; 10. Haskovec, 159.

NB: We first reported yesterday that Aaron Gobert would not require surgery but the prognosis has changed and he is expected to have surgery early next week to fix broken bones in his hand/wrist.

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