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AMA SuperBikes Road Atlanta

AMA SuperBikes: Mladin wins and Spies crashes in Race 1

(AMA Pro Racing Release) Ben Spies’ AMA Superbike Championship lead was whittled down to just two points over Saturday Road Atlanta race winner Mat Mladin, but Spies was fortunate the incident-packed contest didn’t blow the title race wide open in his rival’s favor.

Early in the race, Mladin made his way past pole sitter Spies and was slowly breaking his rival’s purist as they were leaving the best of the rest at nearly three seconds per clip. Spies, pushing hard on lap 5 in an attempt to keep touch with his escaping Yoshimura Suzuki teammate, had a tire dip off the the track in the esses, sending the 23-year-old Texan bouncing on his machine as his GSX-R1000 twisted and highsided him onto the pavement.

A red flag was quickly issued as Spies rolled around in pain on the circuit. But just as Mladin had done at Miller Motorsports Park, Spies and his machine were quickly returned to pitlane and prepped for a restart from the back of the field.

While Spies worked his way up the pack, Mladin quickly created separation at the front and put in yet another steady ride to claim his fifth AMA Superbike win in a row. It was also his eleventh on the season, tying Mladin’s own mark for most in a single campaign.

After winning for the tenth time at Road Atlanta, the six-time series king said, “It was a good race for us today; it was good to get the win and have 11 wins for the year. It's been a pretty good season so far.

“Before the red flag we had good pace. The lap that Ben crashed we had it up to 0.7 and I knew Ben was very strong at the top there. The couple laps that I followed him through there I knew that he was very strong. But I knew that we were strong also in a few spots. We were doing our best to just try and eke it out and try to put as much pressure on Ben as possible. He knows that he wants to win the championship a lot more than I do; I'm not that concerned about it. And he knows that you've got to win if you're going to win the championship, so he’s got to get going. That’s made for good racing out there and we look forward to tomorrow. Hopefully we can put on a good show.”

The drama wasn’t complete following the restart, however. Yamaha USA teammates Eric Bostrom and Jason DiSalvo, who appeared set for dream results for the squad, quickly saw their day turn into a nightmare. Bostrom, who got the holeshot following the red flag, dropped from second on lap 5 to sixth by the conclusion of lap 8 before running off track and ultimately returning to the pits with a problem.

DiSalvo, meanwhile, showed impressive speed in the runner-up position, keeping Mladin in sight for the opening four laps following the restart while leaving the rest of the field behind him. But the class rookie’s race would end in disappointment on the same lap that his teammate's did, crashing out of a clear second on lap 9.

Spies ripped up the field, moving from last to eighth in the first circulation following the restart and found himself handed second when DiSalvo exited the contest. A lap earlier, Spies blew by both his Yoshimura Suzuki teammate, Tommy Hayden, and Monster Energy Kawasaki’s Jamie Hacking as they approached the Turn 10 chicane at the end of the back straight. When Spies completed the move, Hacking got into the turn deeper than he anticipated, and despite putting his foot down in an attempt to make the corner, he bumped into Hayden resulting in a crash for the Kentuckian.

Spies was already five seconds down once he took over second. Mladin worked the advantage up to nearly nine seconds before backing off to a 6.591-second margin of victory at the checkered flag.

Spies talked about his crash, commenting, “It was one of those deals where you set out a decent pace and Mat came by and I got in behind him and, yeah, he was strong in a couple sections but we were staying pretty close. Every lap I’d lose a couple tenths in that real tight chicane just because you can’t see anything. Once he got about a half second on me I could see where I was going so I really wanted to put a couple good laps through there and get back up on his back wheel.

“When I went right to left I think the front wheel barely came off the ground and it just set in that hole or something and it got into a pretty good headshake. It got me in the grass and I started getting sideways and that’s all there was. I fell -- it bashed me up in the tank pretty good and it hit my ribs a little bit, nothing bad. At that point... it was pretty bad. I just couldn’t breathe too much but once I got the feeling back it was okay.”

The reigning champ added in a matter of fact fashion, “It was a pretty uneventful race after crashing and coming back from last.”

Hacking lost a bit of momentum after coming together with Hayden but regrouped in time to mount a late assault on Jordan Suzuki’s Aaron Yates for his third podium finish of the season (even though Hacking wasn’t aware that he had finished third until after taking the checkered flag).

While pleased to put the factory Kawasaki back up on the box again, underlining the team’s recent competitiveness, Hacking was clearly bothered by the incident with Hayden afterwards.

The British-born ace said, “First things first, I’d like to make an apology to Tommy. I was gutted from the results of what happened with Tommy, me and him getting into another. It took me five or six laps after that to regain my composure and realize I’ve got to go on about this. I didn’t mean to do it -- it was a racing incident. I was setting Tommy up for the pass and at that time Ben came by me 20 miles per hour faster than me or Tommy. We got in there and Ben drove me in there a little bit harder than I wanted to get in there. We turned and got in there underneath him and Tom turned and didn’t realize I was there. I was hanging my foot off trying to get the bike into the corner and I just nudged him in the back and knocked him down. I’m terribly upset.”

American Honda’s Jake Zemke took fifth, narrowly fending off Hacking’s teammate Roger Hayden, who picked up sixth.

FBF MV Agusta teammates Matt Lynn and Luca Scassa got into the top ten again, putting their F4Rs in seventh and eighth, respectively, while Jordan Suzuki’s Jake Holden and a remounted Tommy Hayden completed the top ten.

Mladin will look to grab career win #63, established a new single-season wins record (12), tie the all-time AMA Superbike win streak (six), and claim the points lead on Sunday at Road Atlanta.