Hayden, Young, Hayden, Hayes at Mid-Ohio
Henny Ray Abrams | July 10, 2011
LEXINGTON, OHIO, JULY 10 – It was a Suzuki day at the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course, with Rockstar Makita Suzuki’s Tommy Hayden winning his second race of the year, teammate Blake Young finishing second and opening up his points lead, and National Guard Jordan Suzuki’s Roger Lee Hayden earning his first ever Superbike podium in third.Where was Monster Energy Yamaha’s Josh Hayes? The defending national champion finished a close fourth, only his second finish off the podium this year, after falling back from the leading position at the halfway point.
Once he fell out of the lead, Hayes continued to move backwards, eventually landing at the back of the Suzuki trio. The battle for the win was between the Rockstar Makita Suzuki teammates, one of whom is leading the championship the other hoping to get back into it.
Tommy Hayden passed Young on the 19th of 21 laps, but Young wasn’t done. He came back at his teammate on the final lap in the expected place, the hard braking turn six end of the back straight, but Tommy did a good job of protecting the line. He did it again in the next sequence of corners, where passing isn’t uncommon, and held off Young for the final third of a lap to take the win.The margin of victory was .120 sec. Roger Lee Hayden was 1.112 sec. back in third with Hayes another .597 sec. behind in fourth.With Young earning the point for the most laps led, as well as finishing second, the Wisconsinite has 290 points to 279 for Hayes. Tommy Hayden now has 233 points.M4 Suzuki’s Martin Cardenas was alone in fifth, 17 secs. behind the winner. Jordan Suzuki’s Ben Bostrom was sixth after winning the battle with Pegram Racing’s Larry Pegram.JD Beach finished eighth on the Cycle World Attack Performance Kawasaki, but just barely. KTM/HMC Racing’s Chris Fillmore was .389 sec. back in ninth in his second Superbike race. Amsoil EBR Racing’s Geoff May was tenth in the second race for the EBR 1190RS.
Superbike Race:1. Tommy Hayden (Suzuki)
2. Blake Young (Suzuki)
3. Roger Lee Hayden (Suzuki)
4. Josh Hayes (Yamaha)
5. Martin Cardenas (Suzuki)
6. Ben Bostrom (Suzuki)
7. Larry Pegram (BMW)
8. JD Beach (Kawasaki)
9. Chris Fillmore (KTM)
10. Geoff May (Buell)
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.
