This weekend at Road America in Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin, marks the fifth round of the 2012 AMA Superbike season. It is the AMA Subway Superbike double header.
Daytona Sportbike is first up. In the race at Miller Motorsports Park last weekend, Cardenas battled with Benny Solis and Jason DiSalvo. Cardenas won by holding off DiSalvo. He's got a 31 point lead over both Tommy Hayden and Jason DiSalvo. DiSalvo is on pole. This track is so long that you don't have any clue if you have pole or not. The track lap time for these bikes is oh, 2:20. Jake Lewis and James Rispoli battled in the Super Sport class. Jake Lewis on the #89 Suzuki won that race.
The Daytona Sport Bike race is on deck.
Dark clouds might be coming into the area. The bikes are on their warmup lap. This track is four miles long. So, there will be a lot of action.
At the start, the bikes fan down towards turn one with the lead going to Cameron Beauvier and one of the bikes got wide. This race will be 13 laps. It's Beaubier vs. DiSalvo. The Triumph has slightly more torque than the Yamaha. A rider is down in Canada corner. Not sure who it was. DiSalvo and Beaubier continue their battle. Bobby Fong, Cory West and others battle for position. It's Josh Galster who fell off his bike. DiSalvo passes Beaubier under braking. Passing will be done in the draft on the straight, or under braking. Jake Zemke makes his way forward.
Zemke's team almost pulled the plug on racing at Road America, but decided not to at the last minute. Tommu Hayden is buried back in the pack. Dane Westby is also moving up while Martin Cardenas battles Cory West. Three wide on the straight and Cardenas passes two bikes! Cardenas passes Bobby Fong. Westby is his next target. Can DiSalvo hold the lead? Cameron Beaubier holds the lead over DiSalvo's Triumph. DiSalvo drafts Beaubier but will not pass. Cardenas passes Dane Westby in the meantime. Then, Cardenas and Westby pull out to pass.
Four laps complete. The bikes fly out of the chicane towards Canada Corner. It's still a two way battle for the lead as well as for third place. Beaubier, DiSalvo, Cardenas, and Westby. DiSalvo passes Cardenas. Tommy Hayden is languishing further down the order. Cardenas goes to second getting around Jason DiSalvo. Martin Cardenas takes the lead through Canada corner. The race is half over. Jake Zemke and Bobby Fong battle for fifth place. Jake Zemke is having issues getting off of low speed corners. Beaubier looks inside DiSalvo but cannot make the pass.
Cory West, Jake Gagne, J.D. Beach and others are battling further back in the pack. Beaubier passes Jason DiSalvo another time. Beach, Gagne, Nash and Cory West continue to battle. Just four laps left. West and Nash try to pass into the braking zone. Cardenas' bike is beginning to move more than it should. Three laps remainn now. Dane Westby is flying. A bike runs wide as Dane Westby moves to second. It might have been Beaubier running wide. Not sure. Cardenas opens a gap. The battle is now for second spot. Westby wants by both Beaubier and DiSalvo.
Beaubier makes a pass into turn eight. It's coming up on the last lap of the race now. The white flag waves. Cameron Beaubier uses the whole race track. Jason DiSalvo charges by Westby on the straight, but Westby gets it back into the corner. Can DiSalvo outbrake Westby? No. In the entrance to the chicane, no one can really do anything. This is it. Cardenas wins! Beauvier is second and DiSalvo nips Westby for third at the line! n
#36 Martin Cardenas Suzuki GSX-R 600
There will be a second race tomorrow. Superbike is coming up next. The second races for each category will be highlighted very briefly in another post in the not-too-distant future.
This is race one for the Superbikes with rain beginning to fall. Race two will be covered in brief highlights in another post, later on, just the same as with the Sport Bikes.
The track is bone dry, but, the AMA has declared the event a wet race. Setting up for the green. At the start, Danny Eslick starts from pit lane as Josh Herrin leads before Blake Young immediately passes for the first spot. The bikes dive into turn five for the first time, over the ripple strips. Larry Pegram ran wide on the BMW. Young fends off Herrin. Josh Hayes is opening up a gap in the lead. Hayes is gone. He's got a huge gap. Meanwhile, Ben Bostrom is moving up along with Steve Rapp who still has broken ribs from his crash at Infineon Raceway three weeks ago.
Geoff May on the EBR moves up, too. This race will only be twelve laps. Ben Bostrom tried holding the line into the Carousel but couldn't quite do it. It's Heron, Bostrom, and Rapp. Hayes has a five second lead. Josh Hayes continues to lead. The Suzuki GSX-R-1000 that Blake Young rides is quite long in the tooth. It's at the end of it's development stage, whereas, Josh Hayes' Yamaha is still evolving and still getting more competitive. Blake Young got his first AMA win in Super Stock in 2008. The race is approaching halfway. Ben Bostrom, Larry Pegram, Danny Eslick, Chris Clark and Chris Fillmore round out the top ten.
Eslick is back on track and is moving up after starting from pit lane. The two KTM's are running well. The #69 bike is smoking on downshifts. Eslick might have something wrong with the bike. The other bike that is in the top ten is the #86 ridden by Jason Farrell (another Kawasaki ZX10). Note: Larry Pegram's BMW is the same bike (the S1000RR), that is ridden by Marco Melandri, Mark Aitchison, Michel Fabrizio, Ayrton Badovini, and Leon Haslam in FIM World Superbike.
This race is half over. It's Yamaha vs. Suzuki in this race. Bostrom's bike is owned by NBA legend, Michael Jordan, by the way. Danny Eslick is out of this race and will have to wait for the second race tomorrow. Roger Hayden also pits the sister Jordan Suzuki. Hayden is also a DNF. Steve Rapp holds down fifth place. He battles with Larry Pegram. Steve Rapp had a HUGE wreck at Road America back in 2000, crashing into then team mate John Kocinski. But in this race, Rapp will retire his Kawasaki with five laps left.
Josh Hayes continues to lead. Just three and a half laps to go. Steve Rapp had the chain fall off his Kawasaki and it just flew off the bike! Fortunately, it didn't hit any other riders in the face! Yikes! There could be another BMW bike at the Laguna Seca round of the series later on this summer. The new bike will be supported by the BMW factory in Germany and not just by BMW North America. The European spec bike is a newer one. Two laps remain now. Ben Bostrom is turning up the heat on Josh Herrin.
Raindrops are falling on the track. This is the U.S. version of the Nurburgring or Spa Francorchamps, because weather can be totally different on either side of the track. Josh Hayes has one lap left before he'll win this race. Josh Hayes slows down as the red flag comes out for rain. Hayes is the winner.
#1 Josh Hayes Yamaha R1
Hayes also won race two at Road America. The next race on the AMA Superbike and Daytona Sport Bike calendar is the Triumph Super Bike Classic at Barber Motorsports Park in Birmingham, Alabama. That takes place next weekend from June 22nd to the 24th.
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