Mladin Wins A Long One

Paul Carruthers | August 2, 2008

LEXINGTON, OH, AUG. 2, 2008 – Race fans at the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course could have pulled out an old copy of War & Peace and made a dent in it in the amount of time it took to complete today’s first of two AMA Superbike races. How does two hours and 15 minutes sound? That’s what it took before Rockstar Makita Suzuki’s Mat Mladin could complete his 19 laps and put this race out of its misery. Scheduled for 26 laps, this one was a debacle from the beginning and it took four starts and three red flags to get it in the books. First came an horrific crash on the seventh lap when Neil Hodgson’s Honda CBR1000RR blew up and left a trail of oil that caused numerous riders to go down. Then, on the next start, race leader Mladin and second-place man Jamie Hacking went down simultaneously on the first lap when a fan reportedly dumped his cooler on a bridge and the water ran onto the track (we’re not making this up!). Both riders were okay and were able to make the third start, but that only lasted for four more laps before Matt Lynn crashed the Corona Honda with Miguel Duhamel going down in his debris (it was Duhamel’s second crash on the day). Lynn’s bike caught fire and that brought out yet another red flag. The final start, at 5:30 p.m., went the distance with Mladin beating his teammate Ben Spies. Hacking finished third with Yamaha’s Jason DiSalvo fourth and Rockstar Makita Suzuki’s Tommy Hayden fifth. Spies now leads the series over Mladin by 27 points, 444-417. Hacking is third with 348. Hodgson, a non-finisher, is now just two points ahead of DiSalvo in fourth place. Superbike Final 1. Mat Mladin (Suzuki) 2. Ben Spies (Suzuki) 3. Jamie Hacking (Kawasaki) 4. Jason DiSalvo (Yamaha) 5. Tommy Hayden (Suzuki) 6. Roger Lee Hayden (Kawasaki) 7. Eric Bostrom (Yamaha) 8. Geoff May (Suzuki) 9. Chris Peris (Suzuki) 10. Scott Jensen (Suzuki)