Rockstar Makita Suzuki – Fontana | AMA Pro
- From: TRS Media | Published: March 22nd, 2009 - 11:59 pm
Rockstar Makita Suzuki’s Mladin Adds to his Impressive Victory Tally at Fontana Rockstar Makita Suzuki’s Hayden Finishes Second Again
Round 2 – AMA Superbike Series – Fontana, California – Auto Club Speedway
March 22, 2009
As in Saturday’s race of this doubleheader weekend, Rockstar Makita Suzuki teammates Mat Mladin and Tommy Hayden pulled to the front of the field for the afternoon competition. A Red Flag stopped the race early on, and in the restart Tommy Hayden was able to take the holeshot ahead of Mladin. The teammates exchanged the lead once more during the race, before Mladin capitalized on a nearly flawless race to the checkered flag. Hayden was not able to keep pace with Mladin in the final laps, but he succeeded in holding off the rest of the field and earning another second-place finish for the Suzuki Superbike Challenge weekend. Newly signed Blake Young had a rough day,
jumping the start and then working his way up from last place. The young rider made the best of a bad situation, however, and brought home a top-10 finish.
Mat Mladin:
“I had a good race today. We learned a little bit from Tommy (Hayden) yesterday, and we changed a couple things today. We made some improvements, and it allowed me to stay close to him and make the move when I needed to. We ran a little bit hotter pace today and it was a very good race overall for Rockstar Makita Suzuki. It’s great to have Suzuki up here on top again with first- and second-place finishes. The Rockstar Makita Suzuki crew can take most of the credit for that. I show up for the weekend and have a great motorbike to race in the Suzuki GSX-R1000. ”
Tommy Hayden:
“It was shaping up to be a pretty good race, battling with Mat. I got on the front straightaway and missed a couple gears. Overall, the Suzuki GSX-R1000 was very good. I had some issues with grip today, so it was a little harder for me to run with Mat. He had his head down today. It was a good weekend with two secondplace finishes. I got a little momentum going into Road Atlanta, and we’ll try to keep up what we’ve been doing.“
Blake Young:
“My race started out good. I got a good start and then we had the red flag and had to re-grid. I just jumped the start, so I had to come into the pits and do a ride-through and that’s basically where my race ended. But I did my best and worked my way through to ninth place. I think as far as looking at the positives from today, we learned a lot from race one on Saturday and applied it to race two on Sunday. And because of that, I think we have a better bike going into Road Atlanta because of it.”
Rockstar Makita Suzuki Factory Racing will race next at Road Atlanta in Braselton, Georgia, on the weekend of April 4-5, 2009.
