AMA SuperBikes: Barber Motorsports Park 2008

Mladin muscles his way to victory

(AMA Pro Racing Release) Six-time AMA Superbike champion Mat Mladin’s fanatical approach to his fitness is well known. And the results are plainly visible for all to see, as at the age of 36 the Australian appears to be at the peak of his career, stacking up victories at an unprecedented rate despite being pit up against Ben Spies, the greatest rival of his storied career.

Even though he fell a point short of the ’07 title, Mladin established the new single-season record with 12 wins. If possible, he looks to be even more formidable early in 2008, storming to both poles, leading the most laps each time out, and walking away with all three races of the young season with relative ease.

After completing the weekend double, Mladin talked about the effort it took to bull his factory Rockstar Makita Yoshimura Suzuki GSX-1000R around the tight Barber Motorsports Park to such good effect. “You know these motorbikes are brutes to ride; they’re 375 lbs., they’re 200 plus horsepower, and they don’t stop that good, and they don’t turn that good. So unless you’re in good shape and willing to wrestle a motorcycle for 28 laps, you’re not going to go fast. These bikes will not go fast around a racetrack just sitting on them and expect them to turn around corners and do everything for you. They don’t do that.

“Tomorrow I’ll get up and I’ll be hurting like hell. Everything will be sore -- my shoulders and my back and everything, and that’s what it takes to win. That’s it. Doesn’t help when you’re 36 compared to 23 or 24 down there, but everything will hurting -- that’s what it takes.

“That’s 40-45 minutes of tongue between the teeth. Halfway through that race when Ben was holding it at 3.5 seconds I had to stick my tongue between my teeth and go. Drop it back down into the mid-fives and that’s what it’s all about. You’re not going to win these races unless you do that.”

He spoke further about his ideal start to his 2008 campaign and how he’s gotten to this point, stating, “Our goal is to come out and win as many races as possible and we’ve done that so far, three from three, and led the most laps and got poles and that sort of stuff and for us to do that it’s pretty good.

“Ben’s at a high level and I had to change my routine at the end of last year and try to come in here at different condition and do some things different than what I believe I needed to do to get better. And yesterday’s race, when Ben wasn’t in there, I had a bit of a think about it while I was on the bike and pretty comfortable racing, about how I could improve a few things from yesterday’s race. So this week we’ll start doing a bit of work there and by the time we turn up at Infineon, try to change a few things before we get there and improve a few things with myself and you know that’s it.

“So we’ve got to continually try and improve. Ben’s a good motorbike rider and he’s not going to slow down -- there’s no doubt about that and he wants to go Grand Prix, so if he’s going to do that, he needs to keep pushing hard. So we’re going to have to do the same.”

Spies was understandably subdued but characteristically gracious after finishing second to Mladin. Asked what he was missing on the day, Spies admitted, “Quite a bit at the end. Another not so good start. Once we got into second we kind of clawed our way back up. We stayed on the back for a couple laps and then just had a few issues and couldn’t keep the pace and that’s all there was to it. We tried as hard as we could today and it definitely wasn’t good enough. But it’s a whole lot better than yesterday.

“We’re going to some pretty good tracks that I do like. Not saying that the results are going to be any different but we’re going to give it all we’ve got and try to step it up again. We’re chasing him and that’s all there is to it. He’s riding really good right now and we’ve got to take it to another level and try to start winning some races.”

Surprising in one respect but expected in another, third-place finisher Tommy Hayden was possibly the happiest of the podium finishers on the day.

After completing the Suzuki podium sweep Hayden said, “It was a hard race for me but it feels really good to get two podiums and be starting off on the right foot this year. My goal coming into the year was to get up on the podium regularly out of the gate and then worry about these guys. I’m not going to kid myself and act like I’m going to show up this year and start battling for wins. I’ve got to start somewhere. To get up here every week I think ought to initially get me a little bit closer and I feel like I’m headed right, moving forward for that and I’ll keep with that and hopefully start seeing these guys a little bit more.”

Supersport Quotes:

Josh Herrin – First Place

“From my seat it was actually a really smooth race up until that last corner. Actually, I almost took (Ben Bostrom) out in the spider web corner or whatever it’s called. I thought he was going to go in on that lapper but he ended up playing it safe and if I wouldn’t have gassed it I would have just nailed him. I think that was even closer than the last turn.

“Overall the race was really good. We used the power of the R6 to just pull away and the Dunlop tires were working great. Just like Ben says, I think this is what it’s going to look like, just the competitiveness between the two R6s.

“I was kind of looking for spots that I was stronger than him. I knew in the beginning that he was stronger than me in the last split. You could see I would gain in the middle and he would just pull away coming out. I was trying to get him at turn 5 but I didn’t get in there strong enough. I was hoping that something would happen and he’d run wide a little bit or something because I knew I wouldn’t get him in that last split.

“The lappers turned for me this race and I ended up doing good.

“I think I first started to know who Ben was when I was about 10. It’s really weird but it’s really cool because he’s got a lot of experience and he’s willing to share it with me.

Ben: Until now (laughs).

Ben Bostrom – Second Place

“I didn’t get the best start so I just freezed my way up there so I was all in control. And then kept looking back to make sure I was setting the right pace and just getting Josh to hang on.

“Man, he snookered us in the end. He rode fantastic the whole time and I saw Jake back there for a while. We seemed to kind of get away from the Honda there and there wasn’t much to it. I didn’t know what was going to happen with the lappers -- just try to do the best job we could through them and Josh did as well.

“They had a blue flag out so I kind of figured those two guys, would be like okay, last corner, let’s let them through. I was intending to go low. I guess that guy didn’t plan anything, so he went high, and then he swooped down low. And then I changed my line because I had to go up high, but Josh was already high. He must have been carrying a lot of corner speed on the outside and really pushing the tire. That was a fantastic job and I just tried to get a big run at him off the last corner and make a big photo finish there and I was about into the grass.

“So here we are in second place and we’ll just go to the next one and just do the same thing, just keep working on setting fast laps and having great races.”

Jake Zemke – Third Place

“We started off on the second row and got a decent start, not a great start, and had to just work our way up. By that time Josh and Ben had a bit of a gap. I was actually able to close up a little bit. About the same time I got up to where they were at, my tire just couldn’t sustain the pace those two were running. Those two rode awesome today and kind of left me behind. Hopefully at Fontana we can keep it a little bit closer and give them a little bit more of a race.

“I’ve had good results here in the past. This is a good track and I really enjoy racing here. Obviously it’s a beautiful facility. I’ve got a lot of motivation this year. It’s easy being motivated when you show up at the racetrack knowing you’ve got a motorcycle that can challenge for wins and podiums on. The last couple seasons we worked really hard on the Honda Superbike development since ’05. We definitely made some huge gains on that motorcycle but at the same time it wasn’t the kind of consistently we were looking for, for a motorcycle that could be in contention week-in and week-out. Right now I’ve got a bike that I feel I can be competitive on every week.”

Superstock Quotes:

Aaron Yates – First Place

“I just enjoy (Barber Motorsports Park) I guess. It’s fun -- you’re always doing. You’re turning, you’re going over hills and down hills and trying to keep the bike from sliding too much and spinning and going over bumps and jumping the curb back there. And I think that’s about my favorite part of the place.

“It’s just a track where you’re always turning and I usually do pretty good on tracks like that. It’s a lot of fun. It flows pretty nicely and the Suzuki GSX-R1000 goes around it excellently.”

Jake Holden – Second Place

“Things went all right. I didn’t get the best start. I was going to maybe let Aaron go off and tow around on him because I know he was going fast. We gambled a little on a race tire also. We didn’t have a lot of testing with tires, didn’t do race distance with it. The Dunlop guys gave us some good feedback for it.

“You know, second is not bad, coming from 13th at Daytona it’s a big change. My crew is working hard. This year’s CBR1000 is a great bike to be working with so I’m looking forward to the rest of the season, it’s going to be a tough one.”

Chris Ulrich – Third Place

“Well for sure I didn’t really expect to be up here 100%. You know, my start was good and I was right up there, a couple guys passed in front of me so I was sitting in P5 just trying to run Blake (Young) down and he had a problem.

“I was closing the gap on Blake and I think he was just pushing a bit too hard and he tucked the front over in five. You know I was just trying to hang onto Geoff (May) and hang onto him and he was edging away, edging away and my tire was getting worse and worse. I decided to just kind of take fourth and I come over the top of the hill and there he is on the ground and I couldn’t believe it. After that I saw plus-10 on my board, and man, I just made sure I didn’t crash. It’s been a long road to get back on the podium for sure.”