As holeshot winner Geoff May on the Team M4 EMGO Suzuki GSX-R600 fell into the clutches of Attack Kawasaki’s Steve Rapp and Hayden’s teammate, Jamie Hacking, Hayden and Herrin began to place the pressure on front runner Josh Hayes, who entered the weekend with the Supersport points advantage.

However, the Erion Honda star’s title hopes took a tremendous blow on Saturday as he and rival Hayden came together as the Kentuckian made an inside pass for the lead while working lap 6 of 17. When they made contact Hayden bobbled slightly while Hayes crashed out into the dirt and unable to rejoin the fray.

A few short laps later, an extremely motivated Herrin ducked into first, overtaking Hayden in Turn 2 on lap 9. Herrin, who has flashed incredible natural talent on occasion, ran strong once out front until the final lap; he didn’t make any major mistakes and held firm under the pressure being applied by Hayden, who pushed him hard from second.

However, the Kawasaki ace had a few tricks left up his sleeve, showing the youngster his wheel multiple times on the last lap. Hayden looked almost certain to steal back the lead with a Haga-esque maneuver entering Rainey Curve, but Herrin chopped him off and retained first. He wasn’t able to respond to Hayden’s late-on-the-brakes move up the inside in the final Turn 11, however, as the championship hopefully skillfully dropped his ZX-6RR into the turn and squared it back out to hold the Graves Yamaha pilot off in the drag race to the flag.

Hayden’s margin of victory was a scant 0.086 seconds.

Afterwards the victor remarked, “(Herrin) got a little gap on my the second to last lap. Going down into Turn 1 I saw a big group and thought, ‘please don’t go for it.’ I saw him go up the inside and he got them all. It was a very exciting last lap; I was getting nervous there about halfway through because I wasn’t very close. He rode a good race. Once he got in the lead I figured he’d make a lot more mistakes -- I remember when I first led a race. He rode solid and the lap times were fast, so he definitely made me earn it today.”

Commenting on his run-in with rival Hayes, Hayden said, “I don’t know what happened. I passed him up the inside and then on exit there I felt a bump and I looked over and saw someone tumbling. I don’t really know. Some reporter asked me something about it like maybe I got in too hot. I haven’t seen it on TV but I thought it was a clean pass. I didn’t do anything different and that’s unfortunate for him. If I did do something like that, I apologize, but I don’t think so. I don’t think it was like that.”

Runner-up Herrin said, “I’m really happy with my performance. It’s better than throwing it down the road -- I’m glad we finished all the laps. I think we did a great job and Roger did a great job and it was definitely fun battling with him through the race. The Dunlop tires worked awesome the whole time and I couldn’t have asked for anything more. Overall, I’m really happy considering we started from ninth on the grid. I think we did pretty good.”

Asked about the final lap, Herrin said, “Going into the corkscrew I ran a little bit wide and I knew he had gained some time right there. That last corner I was thinking about throwing a little block on him but I remember going back to last year, I tried doing the same thing at Miller and he got the drive out on me and got me in the end. I was just trying to play it safe towards the end and finish the race and he got me. It was a good pass.”

Rapp ultimately took third, powering past May with Hacking when the Georgian suffered a scary moment after touching the paint on lap 8. Rapp and Hacking exchanged the position a handful of times before the Daytona 200 winner established himself as a clear podium finisher in the race’s final laps.

The third-place finish was Rapp’s first Supersport podium at Laguna Seca, one of the Californian’s home tracks. “This year there have been a lot of firsts for me. I don’t expect it, but at the same time it feels good. Ever since I joined Kawasaki and Attack, everything has been going really good for me. There have been a lot of changes as far as manufacturers and tires and things like that, which changes a lot of things for the riders, so I feel good about it. I’m happy to reward the team with the best result we could get.”

May continued on to grab fifth behind Hacking and was followed by Hayes’ teammate, Aaron Gobert, who inherited sixth when Chaz Davies’ Celtic Racing R6 gave up on him entering the front straight at the conclusion of lap 12.

May’s teammate, Colombian Martin Cardenas grabbed yet another solid result for Team M4 EMGO Suzuki, finishing seventh, with MPT Racing’s Blake Young, Attack Kawasaki’s Ben Attard, and Yoshimura Suzuki’s Tommy Hayden rounding out the top ten.

Hayden now leads the championship 214-201 over Hacking. Hayes has fallen all the way back to third at 185 and will have to fight an uphill battle with just four rounds remaining on the ’07 calendar.