TOOELE, UTAH, MAY 28 – Monster Energy Graves Yamaha’s Josh Hayes blistered the field to win the Superbike race at Miller Motorsports Park, and he was joined on the podium by teammate Josh Herrin, whose scrap for second with Yoshimura Suzuki’s Blake Young was the most entertaining show in an otherwise dull race, and netted him his best Superbike finish.
Young might have been detuned from a morning warm-up crash or he might just have been overmatched. Either way, Hayes was a man on a mission and there was no stopping him.
From the pole position, he jetted away and patiently built up a lead that would grow to over eight seconds. When he crossed the line, after 16 laps of the sun-drenched 3.06-mile road course, his margin of victory was 7.774 secs.
Hayes’ fourth win of the year put him back into the championship lead a race after he’d lost it by crashing at Infineon Raceway. Hayes now has 194 points to 187 for Young, who finished a close third to Herrin. National Guard Jordan Suzuki’s Roger Lee Hayden, third in points with 114, had his worst day of the year. He destroyed a bike in a morning warm-up crash, then crashed again during the race while on the tail end of the Young-Herrin scrap.
With Hayes long gone, the Young-Herrin-Hayden fight was the most engaging. Then Hayden was down, on lap four, and it was up to Young and Herrin to entertain, though Jordan Suzuki’s Ben Bostrom stuck to them until about the tenth lap.
It would all come down to the final lap. Herrin passed Young in the second part of the first turn left to take second, then Young barged his way through, nearly colliding with Herrin in the following Dreamboat second turn. Unfazed, Herrin came back at Young and was back in the lead on the approach to the Attitudes sequence, a descending left-right-left that mirrors the Corkscrew. Young kept the heat on to the end of the lap, but Herrin was resolute and had his best Superbike finish. It was Yamaha’s first one-two Superbike finish in some time.
Team Amsoil/Hero’s Geoff May (EBR) made up for a slow start to pass Bostrom for fourth. Bostrom faded to a secure fifth, well in front of the second EBR of Danny Eslick.
Foremost Insurance/Pegram Racing’s Larry Pegram was a lonely seventh. Yoshimura Suzuki’s Chris Clark was an equally lonely eighth.
AMA Superbike Results:
1. Josh Hayes (Yamaha)
2. Josh Herrin (Yamaha)
3. Blake Young (Suzuki)
4. Geoff May (EBR)
5. Ben Bostrom (Suzuki)
6. Danny Eslick (EBR)
7. Larry Pegram (BMW)
8. Chris Clark (Suzuki)
9. David Anthony (Suzuki)
10. Chris Fillmore (KTM)
