Photography By: Andrea Wilson
Tommy Hayden came within .026 of a second of winning the first Daytona Superbike race last year and .210 sec. of winning the second. He’s won a Supersport race at the Speedway as well as a Superstock race. Clearly, he knows his way around. Which is why we asked him to help with our preview of this year’s race, as well as this year’s championship.
On the Superbike class at Daytona.
Well, I think I mean most of the main players are very similar from last year, minus myself. Obviously, Blake [Young, Yoshimura Suzuki] will be strong, Josh [Hayes, Monster Energy Graves Yamaha] will be strong, Ben [Bostrom, Jordan Suzuki] and Rog [Hayden, National Guard Jordan Suzuki] will be in there, which is the way most of last year’s races went. I guess the only thing they’re missing from last year is [Martin] Cardenas. Besides that, I think that’ll be very similar.
I have no idea the performance level of the Buells or the KTM at this point, so it’s hard to say with those guys. At the test, it seemed like they still needed to make another step to get up with those front guys. I would say those four guys will probably make a pretty good race out of it.
For Hayden’s complete predictions, see this week’s issue of Cycle News at the following link:
http://cyclenews.coverleaf.com/cyclenews/20120306#pg69