Young Doubles Road Atlanta

Henny Ray Abrams | April 18, 2010

BRASELTON, GA, APRIL 18: Rockstar Makita Suzuki’s Blake Young completed an unconventional double-header sweep by edging Team Graves Yamaha’s Josh Hayes in a tense battle on a warm day at Road Atlanta.Young had been given his first Superbike win when Hayes was penalized 21.4 secs. for not serving his ridethrough penalty after jumping the start in Saturday’s red flag-interrupted race. But it was Hayes atop the podium when the champagne was sprayed.On Sunday there was no doubt who’d won. Young took the lead from the start, soon to be joined by Hayes. The pair left the field behind-Tommy Hayden was third at nearly 17 seconds-and made the race their own.Young used traffic in turn one to stretch his lead on Hayes to .745 secs. on the 12th of 20 laps. But Hayes clawed his way back and was in Young’s shadow by lap 16.The pair set up for a final lap duel, with Young leading at the key points on the track, including out of turn seven and down the back straight. Hayes wasn’t close enough to take advantage of the draft and had to wait for one last shot in the final right hand turn 12.Young had the rear tire of his Suzuki GSX-R1000 dancing going into the corner and had a slight bobble coming out. He looked over his shoulder to see Hayes right there. Then came the drag race to the finish, won by Young by .136 secs.Hayden was a distant third with Jordan Suzuki’s Jake Zemke fourth.Zemke stays in the points lead with 145, four more than Hayden. Young moves into third with 130.M4 Monster Energy Suzuki’s John Hopkins recovered from an early race off-track excursion to take fifth place, passing Foremost Insurance’s Larry Pegram (Duc) late in the race. Pegram held onto sixth.Results:1. Blake Young (Suzuki)2. Josh Hayes (Suzuki)3. Tommy Hayden (Suzuki)4. Jake Zemke (Suzuki)5. John Hopkins (Suzuki)6. Larry Pegram (Ducati)7. Taylor Knapp (Suzuki)8. Chris Ulrich (Suzuki)9. Chris Clark (Yamaha)10. Barrett Long (Ducati)