Saskatoon’s Brett McCormick got his big
chance with Team Jordan at Road Atlanta all right, but sadly came
away with only a crash and a mechanical DNF for his trouble. He’d
qualified eighth, not too shabby at all.
Blake Young of Yoshimura Suzuki got his
first double victory in the AMA’s premier superbike class, but it
wasn’t without controversy.
The first race was won on track by
Graves’ Yamaha rider Josh Hayes, but Hayes was eventually penalized
for a jump start penalty that got screwed up by a red flag that
occurred as Hayes was taking his stop and go penalty. He was unhappy
but philosophical, saying later that he felt good, the bike worked
well, and he figured somebody had a made a mistake on the re-grid.
He took a hard-fought second behind
Young in Sunday’s contest, finishing only 0.136 seconds back of the
winner.
Young’s Yoshimura team-mate Tommy
Hayden carded a second and a third while Jordan Suzuki’s Jake Zemke
got a third and a fourth to maintain his series lead.
The race of the weekend was the
"Daytona Sportbike" (aka 600 Supersport) class on Sunday,
when six riders hammered on each other right to the last lap, when
Danny Eslick’s last-corner crash separated the field a bit and let
Martin Cardenas get the double win for the weekend.
After six of 19 scheduled races
(including double-headers) the Superbike standings look like this:
1. Jake Zemke, Jordan Suzuki, 145
points; 2. Tommy Hayden, Yoshimura Suzuki, 141; 3. Blake Young,
Yoshimura Suzuki, 130; 4. Josh Hayes, Graves Yamaha, 107; 5. Larry
Pegram, Foremost Insurance Ducati, 92.
The next event is back in California
May 16 at Infineon Raceway near Sonoma.
