Henny Ray Abrams | June 24, 2012
Photography By: Andrea Wilson
LEEDS, AL, JUNE 24 – Monster Energy Graves Yamaha’s Josh Hayes completed a dream weekend for Yamaha by throttling the competition in Sunday’s Superbike race a day after winning on Saturday and soon after Y.E.S. Graves Yamaha’s Cameron Beaubier had swept the weekend’s Daytona Sportbike races in the Triumph Superbike Classic at Barber Motorsports Park.
With each passing race Hayes is becoming more invincible and this weekend was no different. On Saturday he was hounded by teammate Josh Herrin for much of the race, before the Superbike rookie wisely backed off due to heat exhaustion. Today Herrin wasn’t a factor after making a pair of costly mistakes. The first came on the fifth of 21 laps and dropped him from second to ninth. He fought back to second on the 19th lap, only to make another mistake on the penultimate lap and fall behind Yoshimura Suzuki’s Blake Young.
Hayes won his eighth race of the season over Young by 4.988 secs., with Herrin another 2.310 secs. back in third.
The Superbike win was also Hayes fifth in a row and the 25th of his career, putting him three back of three-time champion Ben Spies. With nine races remaining and Hayes gaining strength every race weekend, it’s a certainty he’ll be third all-time before the end of the season. And it’s looking more and more likely that he’ll break the single season wins record of 12 currently held by seven-time champion Mat Mladin.
Hayes finished another perfect weekend with 320 points to 283 for Young and 197 for Herrin.
Young and Herrin swapped their Saturday finishing positions. Still, it was another double podium for Yamaha.
Team Amsoil/Hero’s Geoff May got past both Jordan Suzukis to take fourth. He passed Ben Bostrom on the 13th lap having earlier passed Roger Lee Hayden. Hayden also passed Bostrom to finish fifth.
Attack Performance/Motorcyclesuperstore.com’s Steve Rapp was seventh with a healthy cushion on eighth-placed Larry Pegram (Foremost Insurance/Pegram Racing BMW).
Barber Superbike Results:
1. Josh Hayes (Yamaha)
2. Blake Young (Suzuki)
3. Josh Herrin (Yamaha)
4. Geoff May (EBR)
5. Roger Hayden (Suzuki)
6. Ben Bostrom (Suzuki)
7. Steve Rapp (Kawasaki)
8. Larry Pegram (BMW)
9. David Anthony (Suzuki)
10. Chris Ulrich (Suzuki)
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.
