Mladin wins race 1 at Barber

Mladin fends off Spies for Barber win

(AMA Pro Racing Release) Six-time AMA Superbike champ Mat Mladin picked up career victory #52 following a tense, race-long duel with rival Ben Spies on Saturday afternoon at Barber Motorsports Park. The hard-fought victory halted the young Texan’s early-season perfection and further cemented the notion that this year’s championship fight is going to be the most fiercely contested the series has seen in years.

The win was especially sweet for the determined Australian as he climbed back on top of the podium at the same racetrack Spies kicked off his ’06 title run in earnest.

Mladin took control of the race early, ripping past his Yoshimura Suzuki teammate and holeshot artist Eric Bostrom to take the lead on the opening lap on the exit of Turn 5. While the Yamaha ace slowly slipped down the order, the dominating Suzuki-powered duo quickly dropped the field, opening up approximately a second of space between them and their pursuers on each successive lap.

The race’s lap chart does not adequately tell the story. Although Mladin led every single lap, the contest was not decided until the checkered flag flew, nor was it without its drama.

Spies applied varying amounts of pressure over the course of the 28-lap contest, from showing Mladin a wheel on occasion in the early stages to appearing in danger of falling out of contention -- logging three straight laps (21-23) more than a half-second back -- and then finally turning the heat back on at the race’s conclusion where Spies’ tried in vain to find a way through.

Mladin suffered in traffic on a number of occasions, losing the precious tenths of padding he worked so hard to achieve. However, the scariest occurrence was an early run-in with a lapper where the Suzuki star narrowly avoided disaster, squeezing through the tightest of quarters as both men ducked up the inside of a corner. He displayed his trademark ice-cool demeanor each time, however, never getting frustrated or giving Spies an opening to take advantage of.

Mladin explained what happened on the close call, stating, “I don’t like to complain about lappers; they’re all out there trying to race as fast as they can. But that guy got the blue flag about half a lap before he looked over his shoulder. And when he looked over his shoulder I was already coming up in the inside and he decided he wanted to go to the inside after he looked over his shoulder. And again he was just going there, it’s not like he moved there or anything on me. By the time he moved there and it was all happening he was already committed. All I could do was let the brake off and just touch the gas a little bit just to get through and past him. Other than that it wasn’t too big a deal. Yeah, it was a bit close but today we survived that one.”

Mladin admitted that Spies’ challenge kept him occupied throughout. “You always have to be concerned, for sure. You know Ben was riding really good and I knew coming across start/finish most of those laps I had .2 or .3. -- at one stage I had .6 there. So all I had to do was go as quick as I could and keep it clean. We kept it really, really clean. Pushed as hard as I could on the last lap. Didn’t make any mistakes, didn’t run wide anywhere.

“When you do ‘24.99 on the last lap it’s pretty hard, if you keep it clean, for someone to come around -- that’s for sure. We did what we had to do today. It was a good race and we’re really looking forward tomorrow. It’s going to be a long battle this season.”Speaking about his failed attempt to steal away the win at the end, Spies said, “I gave everything I had. He had some really good strong points and it was good to follow that and see that for tomorrow and what we need to improve on. His strong points were really where you need to get the pass done and that’s what was making it really tough.

“We gave it a little bit of a go and I was thinking about it with a couple corners to go but I couldn’t quite get up in there. I tried to get a really good drive out of the last corner but I spun a little bit. We did everything we could and he rode really good. If it’s going to be like this all year it’s going to be a really good season. I was riding pretty much 100% the whole race.”

Spies was visibly weaker exiting the hairpin Turn 5, a vital corner and a favored spot for overtaking. “That was pretty much the case every lap. I did everything I could and when you’re giving up big time on drives out of the corner it makes it really hard to stay there. We didn’t quite have the grip we wanted for whatever reason and that could be my fault. We just need to try to get a better set-up tomorrow and get some better grip because that’s where we were really losing the time. It’s hard to make both ends work on the bike and we know what we need to do to fix it and hopefully we can.”

The race for third was almost as entertaining as the struggle for the win. A huge pack battle whittled down to a dogfight waged by Jordan Suzuki’s Aaron Yates, third Yosh runner Tommy Hayden, and American Honda teammates Miguel DuHamel and Jake Zemke.

Zemke dropped off the chase late, leaving DuHamel to slug it out with the Suzuki-mounted riders. The Canadian worked past the Georgian with just over one remaining to take over third and held off the counter-attack to claim his second podium finish of the 2007 season.

Yates and Hayden finished closely behind to round out the top five, while Zemke brought his CBR1000RR home in sixth.

Jamie Hacking came out on top of a third pack of factory riders, eventually breaking free of Yamaha USA teammates Eric Bostrom and Jason DiSalvo to claim seventh, his first Superbike finish for the Monster Energy Kawasaki team.

James Ellison picked up tenth for the Corona Extra Honda team, topping second Kawasaki pilot Roger Hayden for the spot.

Mladin, Spies and co. will square off again in tomorrow’s second-half of the Barber Motorsports Park AMA Superbike doubleheader, which will get underway at 3:00 pm local time.