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Mladin wins Road Atlanta from Spies |
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Posted by Staff
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Sunday, 02 September 2007 |
Yoshimura Suzuki's Mat Mladin won his 11th AMA Superbike race of the season at
Road Atlanta in Braselton, Georgia today, tying his own record for most AMA
Superbike race wins in a single season and recording his 62nd career AMA
Superbike win.
Team mate and defending champion Ben Spies finished in
second place after a crash and a red flag which resulted in Spies re-starting
from the back of the grid. In spite of this, he worked his way through the field
to finish on the podium behind Mladin.
Tommy Hayden was running in an
impressive fourth position when another rider made contact with him and he went
down: He re-entered the race and charged hard to make it up to the top 10 before
the race's end.
Mat Mladin:
"It was a good race
for us today and it was good to get the win. To have 11 wins for the year, well,
it's been a pretty good season so far. We're definitely looking at trying to win
another race tomorrow. Before the red flag today we had a good pace on the
Yoshimura Suzuki GSX-R1000. There were places where Ben 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 and he knows that
you've got to win races 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're looking forward to
tomorrow. Hopefully, we can put on a good show."
Ben Spies:
"We had pretty good speed on the Yoshimura Suzuki GSX-R1000
before the re-start. That was just a little mistake; the way I threw the bike in
there or something. After I got back to the pits I saw the bike wasn't torn up
too bad. I looked at the lap times and told the guys that we could at least go
out and get second place today. I set a couple decent laps in the beginning and
tried to be as patient as possible. All together, coming in second isn't too bad
after crashing and coming back from last place. Tomorrow we've got to find a
little speed. We're close but we need to find something for a little edge."
Tommy Hayden:
"I've felt pretty good all
weekend. In fact, this is the best I've felt in a while. I was looking forward
to the race and I knew the start would be important and I got good starts both
times. I got a good start in the first start and a really good one in the
second. Then another rider took me out and that pretty much put an end to my
race. After that I tried to get back up in case there was another red flag and I
could try and get another good start or if not, just try and get as many points
as I could."
from Team Suzuki Press Office
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