Will Mladin and Suzuki Continue to Lose?
Tuesday, June 09, 2009
Foremost Insurance Pegram Racing's Larry Pegram pops champagne after beating Mat Mladin at Road America on Sunday.
Has the Suzuki American Superbike juggernaut truly been broken? After 53 consecutive U.S. race wins Yamaha’s Josh Hayes toppled the Rockstar Makita Suzuki team in Saturday’s American Superbike
Race 1 at Infineon Raceway last month. And now Ducati’s Larry Pegram beat them again at Road America during last weekend's
Race 2.
Sure Pegram’s Ducati 1098R motorcycle had a definite straight-line speed advantage, but after the race it was found to be within spec. Perhaps more impressive is that Pegram’s team (which he owns and manages) was able to assemble a superior motorcycle without the high level of resources at the disposal of the Rockstar/Yoshimura team. Thus, you really got to hand it to their squad—they straight up beat Mladin and co.
As of today the season is halfway over and Mladin has a sizeable lead over the rest of the field including his teammate, Tommy Hayden. So it's going to be an uphill battle to prevent him from capturing an seventh title. And there’s no doubt that after how irate he was about losing on Sunday in Wisconsin, you can be certain his team is going to be working overtime getting more speed out of its GSX-R1000.
But with five more rounds remaining this year, two of them all-new (Heartland Park in Kansas and New Jersey Motorsports Park), Pegram and company will have 10 more opportunities in which to prove that Suzuki can be beaten on a regular basis. The countdown begins…
Post Tags: mat mladin, rockstar makita suzuki, larry pegram