ELKHART LAKE, WI, JUNE 3 – Monster Energy Graves Yamaha’s Josh Hayes won his third Superbike race in a row, and sixth of the season, as he’s become accustomed to doing, by gapingly large margins.
Today’s win came on a sunny, breezy day in the second race of the Subway Superbike Doubleheader at Road America. Hayes got out to the front and stretched his legs at will, nearly setting a new outright Superbike lap record.
By the end of the 13-lap, 52.65-mile race, Hayes had won by 13.906 secs. The margin of victory was larger than it had been in Saturday’s red flag-shortened race.
On his first flying lap Hayes lapped in 2:11.216 mins., just slower than the 2:11.208 Mat Mladin turned in the 2006 second race here. And for the next few laps he stayed in the 2:11s, a mark no other rider came close to.
Finishing a distant second for the second day in a row was Yoshimura Suzuki’s Blake Young. Young spent most of the race battling with Hayes’ teammate, Josh Herrin, often frustrating him. At one point Young seemed to be trying to stretch the throttle cables by exaggerating his throttle motion down the front straight, flapping his arm like a chicken wing.
Herrin was in second on the 11th lap when Young took it back going into turn five. And for the final lap and a half the Wisconsinite was able to hold off the Superbike rookie to finish runner-up to Hayes in front of friends and family, though with a hard final run Herrin came within .039 sec. of passing Young at the line.
Jordan Suzuki’s Ben Bostrom had a lonely ride to fourth, ten seconds behind Herrin and 14.4 secs. in front of EBR teammates Danny Eslick (Team Hero EBR) and Geoff May, the Team Amsoil/Hero EBR rider who finish two seconds later in sixth.
Yoshimura Suzuki’s Chris Clark was alone in seventh, well up on Kneedraggers.com Suzuki’s David Anthony.
The final two riders in the top ten were Team KTM/HMC Racing’s Chris Fillmore, just behind Anthony, and Foremost Insurance/Pegram Racing’s Larry Pegram (BMW). Pegram was further up the order until running off the track in the downhill turn eight left on lap seven.
Hayes now leads Young 257 to 237 after nine of 20 races. Herrin is a secure third with 151.
Road America Superbike Results:
1. Josh Hayes (Yamaha)
2. Blake Young (Suzuki)
3. Josh Herrin (Yamaha)
4. Ben Bostrom (Suzuki)
5. Danny Eslick (EBR)
6. Geoff May (EBR)
7. Chris Clark (Suzuki)
8. David Anthony (Suzuki)
9. Chris Fillmore (KTM)
10. Larry Pegram (BMW)
