Yamahas One-Two at Infineon Raceway
Henny Ray Abrams | May 15, 2009
Rockstar Makita Suzuki’s hold on qualifying was shattered at Infineon Raceway with Yamaha teammates Ben Bostrom and Josh Hayes going one-two in American Superbike qualifying on a sunny, breezy afternoon in Sonoma.Bostrom had given a preview of his performance by setting the fastest time during last month’s Infineon test. A new seat that lowered the center of gravity made the difference and he used the new set-up to record a pair of thirds at Barber Motorsports Park two weeks ago, his best Superbike finishes of the year.At Infineon, Bostrom was in front for most of the session before lowering his time to a final best of 1:36.117 with less than nine minutes to run in the 50-minute session. At the time, Rockstar Makita Suzuki’s Mat Mladin was second at a gap of .654 of a second after crashing, unhurt, in turn four earlier in the session. Mladin rejoined qualifying with under 11 minutes to run. He was sitting in second when Hayes dropped him from second to third with his best lap of the session, a 1:36.649.That gave Yamaha the top two spots for the first time this season after Suzuki had gone one-two in the first four races. The season began with Tommy Hayden outqualifying Mladin at Daytona. Mladin reversed the order at Auto Club Speedway and Road Atlanta. And Blake Young, the third member of the team, outqualified National Guard Jordan Suzuki’s Geoff May at Barber.The Suzuki crew will have a chance to revert to form in Superpole qualifying later this afternoon. Mladin has been on the pole in each of the first four races.Finishing behind Mladin was May, then Foremost Insurance/Pegram Racing Ducati’s Larry Pegram.Tommy Hayden was sixth in front of Jordan Suzuki’s Aaron Yates.Next came the Hondas of Neil Hodgson, in his return to racing after a more than two-month injury-induced layoff, and Jake Holden, the rider who sat in for him on the Corona Extra Honda team.David Anthony was 10th fastest.American Superbike Qualifying:1. Ben Bostrom (Yamaha) 1:36.1172. Josh Hayes (Yamaha) 1:36.6493. Mat Mladin (Suzuki) 1:36.7714. Geoff May (Suzuki) 1:36.7945. Larry Pegram (Ducati) 1:36.8086. Tommy Hayden (Suzuki) 1:37.1847. Aaron Yates (Suzuki) 1:37.5728. Neil Hodgson (Honda) 1:37.7679. Jake Holden (Honda) 1:38.25710. David Anthony (Suzuki) 1:38.425
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.
