Spies Doubles at Home

Henny Ray Abrams | May 31, 2009

Yamaha’s Ben Spies swept his home double-header at Miller Motorsports Park to move back into contention for the World Superbike Championship.Spies added a dominant race two victory to his win in race one on the 3.05-mile Perimeter Course at Miller Motorsports Park. Unlike the first race, which was red-flagged, this one ran to term.Spies led flag to flag, though Ducati Xerox’s Michel Fabrizio kept him honest until the final quarter of the race when the Texan pulled away.The margin of victory was 9.080 secs.Spies seventh win of the season, combined with an off day by the injured title leader Nori Haga (Ducati Xerox), means the gap between them is now 53 points, down from 88 when they arrived for the seventh of 14 rounds of the championship. Haga finished the first race ninth and came eighth in race two.Haga had a violent high-side on Saturday that left him with a sore back for Sunday’s races.Behind Fabrizio came Hannspree Ten Kate Honda’s Jonathan Rea. Rea battled fellow Brit Leon Haslam (Stiggy Racing Honda) until the final third of the final lap when Haslam crashed at the top of the Attitudes sequence. That handed fourth to Aprilia’s Max Biaggi, making it four brands in the top four.Ten Kate Honda’s Ryuichi Kiyonari finished just in front of Guandalini Racing’s Jakub Smrz (Duc) to take fifth.Shinya Nakano put the second Aprilia seventh with Haga eighth, then gap of seven seconds to Yamaha’s Tom Sykes. Sterilgarda Ducati’s Shane Byrne was tenth.The other Americans didn’t fare as well as Spies. Hacking had an eventful race running off the track twice, first in a collision with Luca Scassa and the second time on his own. He finished 10th. Stiggy Racing Honda’s Jake Zemke was 15th.Race Two:

1. Ben Spies (Yamaha)

2. Michel Fabrizio (Ducati)

3. Jonathan Rea (Honda)

4. Max Biaggi (Aprilia)

5. Ryuichi Kiyonari (Honda)

6. Jakub Smrz (Ducati)

7. Shinya Nakano (Aprilia)

8. Nori Haga (Ducati)

9. Tom Sykes (Yamaha)

10. Shane Byrne (Ducati)

Other:

15. Jake Zemke (Honda)

19. Jamie Hacking (Kawasaki)

Henny Ray Abrams | Contributing Editor

Abrams is the longest-serving contributor at Cycle News. Over the course of his 35-some years of writing and shooting photos, he’s covered events from MotoGP to the Motocross World Championship - and everything in between.