News - May 17 Infineon Race #2
Kawasaki AMA Superbike Showdown
Infineon Raceway, Sonoma, CARockstar Makita Suzuki’s Hayden gets another Infineon podium
Rockstar Makita Suzuki’s Mat Mladin returned to his race-winning ways in the second AMA Superbike race of the double-header weekend at Infineon Raceway in Sonoma, California, on Sunday afternoon. The six-time AMA Superbike Champion started from pole position on his Rockstar Makita
Suzuki GSX-R1000, got into the lead immediately and created a gap to take the win. This victory marks Mladin’s eighth win (out of a possible nine) this season and his 80th career AMA Superbike victory. Rockstar Makita Suzuki teammate Tommy Hayden celebrated two podium positions this weekend, thanks to a third-place finish on Sunday that followed up his second-place finish on Saturday. This impressive result is Hayden’s sixth AMA Superbike podium finish of the 2009 season. Finally, Rockstar Makita Suzuki rookie Blake Young opted to sit out this race weekend after injuring his hand at the previous round at Barber Motorsports Park. Young hopes to be back racing at the next event at Road America in Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin.
Tommy Hayden
“It was good to get two podiums this weekend. I kind of bounced back after a couple of rough races and I feel like we’re going in the right direction now. Today, it was a hard race. From the beginning, I got a pretty
good start on my Rockstar Makita Suzuki GSX-R1000 and I was just trying to hold on. It was tough to run the pace but toward the midway point, it got a little easier. I was just kind of hanging there, though a couple
of times I was able to close up on them in traffic but I made a mistake with a couple laps to go and I knew I wasn’t going to be able to close it back up after that.”
Mat Mladin
“It was a tough one today. I had nothing left out there at the end of the race. I just went as hard as I could on my Rockstar Makita Suzuki GSX-R1000 and kept going and going and going. Toward the end, I just tried to keep it clean and that’s that.”
Blake Young
“I got injured at Barber and I got off my pain killers and finished up my antibiotics to make sure I didn’t get an infection. I got back on the bicycle and started training. My finger felt really good, motion was coming back better and better every day. So I decided to come on out here and see what we could do because every day was getting so much better. Maybe we’d have a chance to ride the bike. But when I got to the track, I realized that if I tried to ride at this point I would just damage my hand. So we’re going to sit out this weekend and then go back to the doctor and keep it healthy and get it healed up for Elkhart Lake.”
