Hayes Takes Infineon Superbike Race One

Paul Carruthers | May 14, 2011

SONOMA, CA, MAY 14 – AMA Superbike Champion Josh Hayes won his first race of the 2011 season today at Infineon Raceway, the Monster Graves Motorsports Yamaha rider riding a calculating 22 laps to beat Rockstar Makita Suzuki’s Tommy Hayden by 7.3 seconds.It was much closer than that for the majority of the race with Hayden staying within a second of Hayes until the 18th of 22 laps. After 19 laps, Hayes got that second advantage and he stretched it from there, leading by 2.1 seconds on lap 20 and turning that into a five-second lead just a lap later. From there he cruised to the 15th AMA Superbike win of his career, tying him for seventh on the all-time list with Freddie Spencer and Eric Bostrom.”That was hard work,” Hayes said. “Tommy rode a fantastic race, but what can I say – this has been three years in a row to win a race here and that’s fantastic. I said when I got here that we’ve set the bar pretty high, but I’m really glad we’re maintaining. We’ll come back tomorrow and hopefully make them wait another year before someone else wins.”Third place went to Team M4 Suzuki’s Martin Cardenas, the Colombian edging Rockstar Makita Suzuki’s Blake Young by just .068 of a second. Those two battled for the entire race with Young holding the spot until running wide in turn seven on the ninth lap. Cardenas took advantage of the blunder and was never headed after that – though Young fought back to the rear of his fellow GSX-R1000 rider but he couldn’t make the pass on the final lap.Chris Peris rode his San Diego BMW-sponsored BMW to fifth after getting the better of a race-long scrap with Foremost Insurance Pegram Racing’s Larry Pegram and the third BMW ridden by Steve Rapp. Peris passed Pegram on the 19th lap and Rapp managed to find his way past Pegram two laps later.Geoff May rode the Buell to eighth with Attack Kawasaki’s JD Beach finishing ninth in his first career Superbike race. Team M4 Suzuki’s Chris Ulrich was 10th.It was a bad day for the Michael Jordan Motorsports team with Ben Bostrom knocked out of what appeared to be a certain fifth when his GSX-R1000 dropped its chain. To make matters worse, his National Guard-backed teammate Roger Lee Hayden was punted out of a battle for fifth by Dave Anthony in turn 11 when the Australian couldn’t get his Suzuki stopped and rear-ended Hayden.Hayes’ win gives him the championship lead over Daytona doubleheader winner Young, 81-78. Tommy Hayden is now third with 71 points.

Superbike Results:

1. Josh Hayes (Yamaha)

2. Tommy Hayden (Suzuki)

3. Martin Cardenas (Suzuki)

4. Blake Young (Suzuki)

5. Chris Peris (BMW)

6. Steve Rapp (BMW)

7. Larry Pegram (BMW)

8. Geoff May (Buell)

9. JD Beach (Kawasaki)

10. Chris Ulrich (Suzuki)