Mladin and DiSalvo Win Superpoles in AMA Pro Superbike Championships at New Jersey
MILLVILLE, N.J. (September 4, 2009) -
Mat Mladin (No. 1 Rockstar/Makita Yoshimura Suzuki GSX-R1000)
won his eighth AMA Pro Road Racing pole of the season and will end
his AMA Pro National Guard American Superbike presented by Parts Unlimited
career with a record 63 pole positions after earning the top Superpole qualifying spot
Friday at the AMA Pro Superbike Championships at New Jersey Motorsports Park
(NJMP). Mladin, who announced his
retirement last month, will start on the pole for both of this weekend's dual
finals, which will be the final American Superbike races of his career.
"I thought we had a
little bit more in it but we ended up getting the pole today, so that was
good," said Mladin, who turned a top lap time of 1:21.558 (97.109 mph). "I
definitely won't place a career of winning on this weekend, whether it's a good
or bad result. Anytime you want to race,
and you want to race hard, there are always places to pass whether you have to
move people out of the way or not. We'll
see how we go tomorrow."
Josh
Hayes (No. 4 Yamaha Motor Corp. USA Yamaha R1), who won his
second Superpole of the season one race ago at Virginia International Raceway
(VIR), was second fastest Friday with a lap at 1:21.872 (96.736 mph).
"I think the track
has a really fun layout, it's actually a lot of fun to get around," said Hayes,
who swept both VIR races. "It feels a
little small on a Superbike, I think the 600 would be really fun to get around
here on. With a Superbike, it's a lot of
work but it's challenging, which is always fun.
I think I have a good bike to be on around here."
Aaron
Yates (No. 23 Brand Jordan Suzuki GSX-R1000) continued
his recent strong Superpole runs and was third fastest to join Mladin as Suzuki
riders in the top four. Yates lapped at
1:22.069 (96.505 mph).
"It's different, a
new place for us," Yates said. "Anytime
we go somewhere new, it's exciting, it's a challenge. The place is a bit of work, a lot of
direction change. You spend so much time
on each side of the bike around those couple of corners back there that you
kind of get tired of hanging off the thing.
It's the same for everybody; it's going to be a long race. We're working hard to get the Jordan Suzuki
going and I think it's coming around pretty good."
Yamaha also put a
pair of bikes on the front row with Hayes' teammate Ben Bostrom (No. 2
Yamaha Motor Corp. USA Yamaha R1) locking down the fourth and
final spot with a lap time of 1:22.076 (96.496 mph).
"The track is
awesome," Bostrom said. "Everyone's
times are very tight. I can't complain,
I haven't been that good in Superpole all year.
The bike's great, I have a really good race bike and I think it should
be on for Saturday and Sunday. Expect
really close racing with everybody. We
haven't won one so we can do our best."
Mladin's teammate Tommy
Hayden (No. 22 Rockstar/Makita Yoshimura Suzuki GSX-R1000) rounded out the
top five while two riders making their American Superbike debuts were
competitive enough to make the 10 rider Superpole cut. Cory West (No. 53
Erik Buell Racing Buell 1125RR) qualified eighth while fellow American
Superbike rookie Damian Cudlin (No. 8 Celtic Racing Suzuki GSX-R1000)
was 10th.
Saturday's American Superbike final is scheduled to
start at 3 p.m. ET for 23 laps/50 miles and can be seen in same-day coverage on
SPEED that night at 7:30 p.m. ET.
Daytona SportBike Super Six for DiSalvo
In AMA Pro Daytona
SportBike presented by AMSOIL, Jason DiSalvo (No. 40 Team M4 Suzuki
GSX-R600) won a class-leading sixth Superpole of the season with a top
lap of
1:23.840 (94.466 mph). He is one of
three riders in Friday's Daytona SportBike Superpole top four looking
for their
first wins of the year in this weekend's season-ending pair of races.
"I think it's going
to be a really, really tight race," DiSalvo said. "The lap times have been super tight all
weekend. It's just kind of blowing me
away having 16 guys within a second of each other. We just have to do a little more work to the
bike tomorrow morning. Our settings are
really, really good. We got a lot of
work done yesterday during the practice.
I'm sure it'll be a good race.
We'll try to lead off the start and see if we can't stay in the lead for
21, 22 laps."
Tommy
Aquino (No. 6 Team Graves Yamaha YZF-R6) will share the
two-rider front row with DiSalvo after his best qualifying effort of the
year. Aquino turned a lap of 1:24.013
(94.271 mph).
"I'm pretty happy,"
Aquino said. "This is my best qualifying
yet, and it should be really good for the race. A win is always the goal for
this season. This is my first season, so
we're just going for race wins, to see what we can do and figure stuff out for
next year. A race win would be really
awesome."
Aquino's teammate Josh Herrin (No. 8 Team
Graves Yamaha YZF-R6) was third fastest at 1:24.118 (94.154 mph) and is the
only rider in the top four who has scored a race win this season.
"I want to end the
season well," said Herrin, who swept the most recent weekend of racing at VIR. "The last four or five rounds have been going
our way. We did better in qualifying
than we have in the last couple of rounds.
Everything is going well; we just have to run a smooth race and put the
Yamaha back on top of the box again. The
track is awesome, I couldn't complain about anything and I've been having a lot
of fun this weekend. I can't wait to
come back next year."
Chaz
Davies (No. 57 Factory Aprilia /Millennium Technologies
Team Aprilia RSV1000R) turned in a solid
qualifying effort with the fourth fastest lap of the Superpole session at
1:24.189 (94.074 mph).
"We rolled out
yesterday with the same settings as what we tested with," Davies said. "It felt weird straight away so we've been
playing catch up today, trying to get back to the same sort of feeling that we
had at the test. It was good, an okay
lap. It's working well and I think, like
Jason said, the lap times are close with everybody. It's going to be a real good dogfight. I'm looking forward to it."
Jake
Zemke (No. 1x Erion Racing Honda CBR600RR) rounded out
the Daytona SportBike Superpole top five.
In other Daytona SportBike developments, this weekend's
anticipated championship showdown between Danny Eslick (No. 9 GEICO
Powersports/RMR Buell 1125R) and Martin Cardenas (No. 36 Team M4 Suzuki
GSX-R600) will not happen. The Colombian rider withdrew from the New
Jersey round due to a
compound fracture of his right hand sustained three weeks ago in Friday
practice for the Suzuki Big Kahuna Nationals at Virginia International
Raceway.
"I had surgery 15 days ago but the scar is coming
apart in one section and it's beginning to be too painful," said
Cardenas, who participated in Friday morning's practice session. "I
am worried about infection so I think the
better thing to do is to stop for this weekend and heal up properly for
next
year. It was a very good season. Unfortunately I made a mistake, a
very stupid
mistake, at VIR and I got this injury. The year didn't finish the way I
wanted
it to but things are like that.
Hopefully next s
