Hacking Set For Miller World Superbike

Henny Ray Abrams | May 19, 2009

Monster Energy Attack Kawasaki’s Jamie Hacking has been confirmed for the U.S. round of the World Superbike Championship at Miller Motorsports Park (MMP) after final details were worked out with the Kawasaki World Superbike team this morning, according to a senior Kawasaki U.S. official.”We got the call and we’re excited that Jamie’s going to ride for the Kawasaki World Superbike team at Miller,” Kawasaki’s road race manager Mike Preston said. “We had a few details to work out and now he’s ready to go.”Preston said some part of the delay was the eight hour time difference between California and the United Kingdom, where Paul Bird Motorsports, which runs Kawasaki’s World Superbike team, is based. The details might have been worked out earlier, but yesterday the team was traveling back to the UK from Sunday’s World Superbike round in Kyalami, South Africa.Hacking will replace Makoto Tamada, the Japanese rider who was injured in the May 10th Monza round of the championship.”I’m definitely excited,” Hacking told Cycle News on Sunday at Infineon Raceway, “and I’m really looking forward to seeing where they’re at compared to where we were.” Hacking raced a ZX10R in the 2008 AMA Superbike Championship, but is racing a ZX6R in Daytona SportBike this season. “I know how hard our guys worked on our bike and we did a great job. So it’ll be interesting to see what they have and maybe to help the guys out, maybe if we can give them a little information and see where they’re at. We’ll go from there.”Last year at MMP, Hacking finished second to his close friend Ben Spies in both races, his best results of the season.”Definitely, Miller is a good racetrack for the bike and for me. I think it’s a great opportunity and I miss Superbike. I’d like to be on a Superbike again. Just going to go there with an open mind and have a good time and that’s about it, get to race with my good friend [Spies].”As to whether he might have other opportunities with the team, he said, “You never know. I mean, there’s always possibilities. Right now we’re just handling Miller and we’ll see how it goes.”In addition to facing off against Spies, Hacking will be racing against Erion Honda’s Jake Zemke. Zemke filled in for the injured John Hopkins at Monza and will replace him again at MMP. Hopkins is recovering from surgery to correct the dislocated left hip he suffered early in the first practice session for the April 26 Dutch round of the championship.