Mat Mladin crossed the finish-line with a 15-second advantage over second place finisher Tommy Hayden.
Rockstar Makita Suzuki’s Mat Mladin keeps his perfect season intact with yet another American Superbike win at Road Atlanta. The six-time AMA Superbike champ took the checkers in dominating fashion over usual second-place finisher, teammate Tommy Hayden, with satellite GSX-R1000 rider Geoff May claiming third aboard his Jordan Suzuki.
The race got underway with a Gixxer-heavy front, as Mladin starting from pole followed by Yamaha’s Josh Hayes and Jordan Suzuki’s Aaron Yates and Rockstar Makita Suzuki’s Blake Young. After the green, it didn’t take long for the gritty Australian to quell any hopes of an upset in Georgia, getting out to a commanding lead and staying at the front.
Mladin worked up a sizable gap over his teammate Hayden, well over 10 seconds ahead by the halfway mark. The top finisher a near foregone conclusion, the real battles of the race were fought over the final rostrum spots.
Jordan Suzuki's Geoff May (54) passed Aaron Yates (23) and made Tommy Hayden work hard for his second place finish in Race 1 of American Superbike at Road Atlanta.
Pushing Hayden was Jordan Suzuki’s Geoff May for second. Meanwhile a cluster of riders, Rockstar Makita’s third rider, Blake Young and Jordan Suzuki’s Aaron Yates attempted to move their way into third. Yamaha’s Josh Hayes and Ducati’s Larry Pegram paced within a second of the top 5 as well, the 1098R pilot having benefited from a late lap surge in the second Fontana AMSB contest to an unexpected podium.
The front four remained unchanged, however, and Mladin crossed the line with an intimidating 15-second advantage. May made Hayden work for second, but the Kentucky Kids older bro managed to fend off the satellite charge by a half-second gap. Blake Young made it an all-Suzuki front four, with Hayes just nudging Yates out for fifth aboard his Yamaha R1.
"It was a good race for us, obviously," said Mladin, after his fourth win of the year. "I just got a reasonable start and got to the lead in Turn 1 and then just put our heads down. We've got the bike to a point now where we're starting to be able to push it like I did the Superbike last year. We had a little bit of a problem with the fork yesterday and we fixed it today, but it actually didn't work as well, so I need to go back to having a problem with the fork. We'll sort something out there for tomorrow so I can start getting into the turns a little bit quicker and a little bit deeper and see if we can't keep pushing tomorrow and get going."
Suzuki's Mat Mladin wins another race at Road Atlanta... Forget the championship, at this point the real story is can Mladin pull off the undefeated season.
1. Mat Mladin (Suzuki)
2. Tommy Hayden (Suzuki) + 15.718
3. Geoff May (Suzuki) +16.175
4. Blake Young (Suzuki) +17.042
5. Josh Hayes (Yamaha) +23.473
6. Aaron Yates (Suzuki) +23.497
7. Larry Pegram (Ducati) +30.836
8. Ben Bostrom (Yamaha) +41.366
9. D. Anthony (Suzuki) +47.038
10. T. Knapp (Suzuki) +54.456
11. Jake Holden (Honda)
12. Chris Ulrich (Suzuki)
13. B. Long (Ducati)
14. Aaron Gobert (Honda)
15. Ryan Elleby (Suzuki)
American Superbike Points:
1. Mladin - 126
2. Hayden - 97
3. May - 71
4. Young - 64
5. Hayes - 59
6. Bostrom - 58
7. Pegram - 53
8. Yates - 46
9. Anthony - 38
10. Gobert - 35
