Josh Hayes finally broke Yoshimura Suzuki’s incredible winning streak (53 straight races) by taking his Yamaha R1 to a win in the first race at Infineon Raceway near Sonoma, California, on May 16, but Suzuki’s Mat Mladin bounced back on Sunday to re-assert the apparently natural order of things. Mladin clearly had issues with the front end of his bike in the Saturday race: "We just struggled today, couldn’t get it done. That’s it. Nothing really to say about it."
Hayes was followed home by Mladin’s team-mate Tommy Hayden, while next up was Larry Pegram on the sole Ducati in the series. Aaron Yates was fourth on one of the Jordan Suzukis, while Mladin was fifth.
On Sunday things reverted to normal, with Mladin taking a flag-to-flag win. This time his closest pursuer was Ben Bostrom, Hayes’ Yamaha team-mate. Hayden was third, Hayes fourth, and Pegram again did well to bring his Ducati home fifth.
Neil Hodgson, returning to racing after missing three events after a motocross training accident, crashed on Saturday but managed to get his Corona Honda home ninth on Sunday.
Daytona Sport Bike
Martin Cardenas, riding for the M4 Suzuki team, took another two wins this weekend to extend his strong series lead and run his consecutive win streak to four. His chief rival and second in the series, Kawasaki’s Jamie Hacking, had a bad weekend, suffering crashes but still managing to recover enough to score some points.
After a strong start in the series, the Buell challenge seems to have fizzled somewhat, with Taylor Knapp in ninth place on Sunday and early series leader Danny Eslick fifth on Saturday being the best results for the American make.
Calgarian Chris Peris had a decent weekend with a pair of seventh place results on one of the Erion Hondas.
The next event, round six in a 12-race schedule, is June 5-7 at the Road America track near Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin.
Superbike standings after five of 12 races:
1. Mat Mladin, Australia, Yoshimura Suzuki, 268 points; 2. Tommy Hayden, USA, Yoshimura Suzuki, 189; 3. Joshua Hayes, USA, Yamaha U.S., 160; 4. Ben Bostrom, USA, Yamaha U.S., 150; 5. Geoff May, Jordan Suzuki, 143.
Daytona Sportbike standings:
1. Martin Cardenas, Venezuela, M4 Suzuki, 203 points; 2. Jamie Hacking, USA, Attack Kawasaki, 179; 3. Danny Eslick, USA, Rossmeyer Racing Buell, 168; 4. Jason DiSalvo, USA, M4 Suzuki, 148; 5. Josh Herrin, USA, Graves Motorsports Yamaha, 136; 10. Chris Peris, Canada, Erion Honda, 92.
