Team Yoshimura Suzuki’s Mat Mladin finished second in Saturday’s AMA Superbike race at Road America in Elkhart Lake, WI. Teammate Aaron Yates crashed on the first lap but resumed the race and ended up 32nd. Yoshimura Suzuki’s Ben Spies also crashed, but finished up in fourth.

“It was a good race for us today,” said Mladin. “Ben and Neil (Hodgson) got away on the start but I tried to be a little bit safe. But it was a good race for us and we’ll take second place -- and the points -- and hopefully come back tomorrow and get the win.”

In Friday afternoon’s initial qualifying session, Mladin snagged his 43rd career pole position and his sixth one of the year by setting a track-record-breaking best lap of 2.12:553 seconds. Spies and Yates were gridded second and third, respectively, with Spies posting a best time of 2.13:345 and Yates a 2.14:235 in Saturday’s session.

“We’ve been looking forward to this racetrack all year because we believe it will be a better one for the Yoshimura Suzuki GSX-R1000,” Mladin said on Friday. “It’s such a solid motorcycle and the front end lets you do amazing things with it. With a track like this, when you have a fast motorcycle that let’s you do what you want with the front end, that’s pretty much everything you need.”

Saturday afternoon saw what was supposed to be the first of the two 16-lap Superbike races scheduled for the weekend. Due to a nasty rainstorm, however, the race was first declared “wet” and was eventually limited to only eight laps.

Five-time AMA Superbike Champion Mladin had a conservative start and was running in around seventh place on the wet, 14-turn track. But as fellow riders went down and Mladin passed competitors, he moved into third place. In spite of coming into the pits for a new rear tire, he still finished in second place.

“These were treacherous conditions for everyone out there and everyone on the podium did a great job in finishing up here in these conditions,” said Mladin, who said these were the worst conditions he’d ever raced in.

Yates, on the other hand, got a great start and was out in the lead on the first lap. Unfortunately, he went down shortly thereafter. But his Yoshimura Suzuki crew came through and Yates was back in the race at the back of the field. In spite of his best efforts, he couldn’t catch up before the race was red flagged.

“My Yoshimura Suzuki GSX-R1000 got me a good jump on the start and into turn one about as good as I could get,” said Yates. “But then I was on the brakes and the bike just slid and I hit the ground. I’m really bummed about it. I got the bike going and my guys got it fixed and at least I got back out there and rode around, which helped my confidence because the Yoshimura Suzuki GSX-R100 was feeling really good.”

Like Yates, Spies got a good start and then moved into the lead when his teammate went down. He held the lead for much of the race, then slowed and came into the pits for a new rear tire. Shortly after returning to the soaked track in fourth place, he also went down; however, the race was red flagged due to rain right after that and Spies ended up with a top-five finish.

“It was good until it went bad,” said Spies afterward. “After Aaron fell, I got into the lead and started just getting in a rhythm. I tried to back it down and conserve the tire, but I had to come in and get new tire anyway. I was trying to get back in the lead and I ended up falling a couple of times and then they red flagged the race.”

Team Yoshimura Suzuki will campaign the second AMA Superbike race of the weekend at Road America on Sunday, June 5.

 

Superbike Race 1

1. Neil Hodgson (Ducati)
2. Mat Mladin (Suzuki)
3. Josh Hayes (Kawasaki)
4. Ben Spies (Suzuki)
5. Marty Craggill (Suzuki)
6. Jake Zemke (Honda)
7. Miguel Duhamel (Honda)
8. Larry Pegram (Honda)
9. John Haner (Honda)
10. Akira Tamitsuji (Suzuki)