Paul Carruthers | April 5, 2010
Graves Motorsports Yamaha’s Josh Hayes turned in the fastest lap of a weather-shortened two-day test at Infineon Raceway in Sonoma, California, last week with a heavy mist basically cancelling the second day on Friday, April 2.Hayes lapped the 2.2-mile road course in 1:36.72 – just .06 of a second quicker than Rockstar/Makita Suzuki’s Blake Young with those two the only riders to crack the 1:37-barrier.”We were a little slow to get started because it was still wet on the racetrack in a few spots,” Hayes said. “Like the braking zone going off the back straightaway. We were weaving in and out of water on the brakes back there. And there was some water in the esses, but for the most part I think everyone got some pretty usable time. I did a lot of laps, considering we didn’t start until late – I did like 94 laps. I was about half a second off my best time [from last year]. I think we should be pretty good. I feel like we improved the bike a little bit. I feel pretty good that I’ll be able to go faster than last year when we go back. My best times actually came in not the best part of the day. I did a couple of 36s about the time Blake [Young] did. I did a pretty good string of laps. The wind had come up later in the day and that’s when I did my best string of laps.”Unfortunately, weather put a damper on the proceedings on day two.”No one really rode,” Hayes said of day two. “It was misting and I went out and did maybe eight laps. I was two and a half seconds off the pace, but we had a clutch pack to try to make sure the bike would ride. We just did that and no one else really went out. They all packed up and went home. It was just misting. I think Jake [Zemke] rolled out and rolled in. [Brett] McCormick might have done a few laps.”Graves Motorsports Yamaha’s Tommy Aquino ended up the fastest of the Daytona SportBike men, the Californian lapping at 1:39.29 on his R6.Fourteen riders from eight teams took part in the test, including young Canadian Brett McCormick, who was testing the injured Aaron Yates’ Michael Jordan Motorsports GSX-R1000. McCormick ended up seventh fastest with a best of 1:38.64. It is expected that he will fill in for Yates during his rehabilitation from the broken leg he suffered at Auto Club Speedway on March 28.
Paul Carruthers | Editor
Paul Carruthers took over as the editor of Cycle News in 1993 after serving as associate editor since starting his career at the publication in 1985. Carruthers has covered every facet of the sport in his near-28-year tenure at America's Daily Motorcycle News Source.
