Rockstar/Makita Suzuki's Blake Young took his third American SuperBike victory of '11 with a win at Miller Motorsports Park.
Blake Young, Tommy Hayden and Josh Hayes (1) put on a stellar show in the 16-lap American SuperBike race at Miller.
Rockstar Makita Suzuki’s Blake Young bested Josh Hayes in an exciting American SuperBike race at Miller Motorsports Park. Joining the Suzuki and Yamaha on the podium was Young’s teammate, Tommy Hayden.
Pole position winner Hayes got a clean start, leading the ASB pack through Turn 1 on the opening lap. The Monster Energy Graves Yamaha rider led the way, with Young in tow. M4 Suzuki’s Martin Cardenas ran third, with Tommy Hayden forth and little brother Roger in fifth. Trailing the top-five riders were Team Iron Horse BMW’s Chris Peris and Cycle World Attack Kawasaki’s JD Beach.
Peris would go down on Lap 3, however, yielding the position to Beach, who then engaged Roger Hayden for fifth. The battle for the five-spot turned into a battle for fourth, as Cardenas lowsided on Lap 4. Beach soon got the Kawasaki around the National Guard Suzuki.
On Lap 6 Young started to size up Hayes, with Tommy Hayden closing the gap to the front-running duo. After biding his time, Young made a pass on Lap 8, with Hayes quickly responding in kind. It was the beginning of a duel that would last through the final lap.
Unable to finish the race, Beach tucked the front of his ZX-10R with three to go. On the same lap Young blasted by on the front straight to take the lead. The running order Young, Hayes and T. Hayden.
JD Beach (10) was pushing a top-four pace but lost the front end on his Cycle World Attack Kawasaki with three to go.
Tommy Hayden is looking for his first career AMA American SuperBike title. He is third in the points after Miller.
Young and Hayes continued with some side-by-side racing as the laps wound down. On the final lap, Young hammered down and got by Hayes. Losing ground the R1 was fending off Hayden for second place, unable to mount a charge on the final corners.
The victory is Young’s third of the season, having swept the opening doubleheader at Daytona.
"For the beginning of the race I just tried to settle into a comfortable pace and just really try to hit my marks," explains race-winner Young, "and just for some reason I found myself not being able to do that. When I'd allow myself to get comfortable, Josh would get a gap that was a little bit more than that I was comfortable with him having, so I'd have to run it back down and settle back into my pace again, and it just didn't seem like that was the way to win the race. So I made the decision that I was just going to put my head down from there, and halfway through, I just tried as hard as I could to the checkers and left it all on the track. I'm pretty comfortable racing with either one of these guys handlebar-to-handlebar like that, because they know what they're doing there out there. And I'm glad I did that; I think it was great racing, I had a great time racing out there, and it was hopefully a good show for the fans."
2011 American SuperBike Miller Results:
1. Blake Young (Suzuki)
2. Josh Hayes (Yamaha)
3. Tommy Hayden (Suzuki)
4. Roger Hayden (Suzuki)
5. Steve Rapp (BMW)
6. Chris Clark (Yamaha)
7. Geoff May (Buell)
8. Ben Bostrom (Suzuki)
9. David Anthony (Suzuki)
10. Jeremy Toye (BMW)
11. Tony Kasper (BMW)
12. Chris Siebenhaar (Suzuki)
13. Trent Gibson (Suzuki)
14. Wesley Kane (Suzuki)
15. JD Beach (Kawasaki
16. Larry Pegram (BMW)
17. Martin Cardenas (Suzuki)
18. Chris Trounson (BMW)
19. Chris Peris (BMW)
20. Jordan Burgess (Suzuki)
2011 American SuperBike Points:
1. Josh Hayes, 134
2. Blake Young, 129
3. Tommy Hayden, 122
4. Martin Cardenas, 67
5. Ben Bostrom, 64
6. Larry Pegram, 64
7. Chris Clark, 60
8. Roger Hayden, 57
9. Steve Rapp, 49
10. Jeremy Toye, 47
