Mladin gets record-breaking win

By ERIN LAWLEY, Register Sports Writer

SONOMA — Mat Mladin went even faster in Sunday’s Superbike race than he did on Saturday, notching his fourth straight win of the season and moving into a tie with Yoshimura Suzuki teammate Ben Spies for first place in the championship points.

“We came in here wanting to get the double wins,” said Mladin, who also won Saturday’s race. “I was just focusing on riding hard and getting as many points as possible. Today was a much faster race than (Saturday).”

In fact, the race was the fastest Superbike race in the history of Infineon Raceway at 45:00.060, dating back to 1977. Mladin has now won 10 of the last 12 Superbike races dating back to last season.

The win was Mladin’s fifth of the season, eighth at Infineon Raceway and 56th of his career. He and Spies now have 238 points each. Honda teammates Miguel Duhamel and Jake Zemke are in third and fourth, respectively with 197 and 181 points. Zemke moved from fifth in the points after his third-place finish on Sunday.

“So far we’ve had a pretty decent season,” Mladin said. “I’m looking forward to getting to Road America. It’s a track I really like a lot. It’s a good two wins to close in on the points and go on to the next race.”

Mladin jumped out ahead as soon as the green flag waved and was followed by Aaron Yates (Suzuki) and Eric Bostrom (Yamaha), respectively.

“We’ve had a couple of really good starts,” Mladin said. “Suzuki’s come up with a good launch control for us. The start is critical. Things are falling into place for us there.”

Other than Friday’s qualifying which he was second in, Mladin has been the fastest since Saturday morning’s qualifying round and Sunday’s practice session. He clocked a lap at 1:35.567 on Sunday and led wire-to-wire – just like Saturday – and averaged 1.36.431 over the 28 laps. His fastest lap was No. 4 at 1:35.531 but continued to run close to that even in the end.

“I’ve got to thank the crew,” Mladin said. “We worked very, very hard and the GSX-R1000 worked beautifully again. It was a good race and Ben kept me honest for about half the race, and then I decided to push a little harder and started getting down into the 1:35s. I’m glad we could put on a good show for the fans.”

Spies was once again the pole winner, but dropped to fourth by Turn 1. Though his start was rough, it wasn’t as bad as Saturday’s.

“Today’s race was definitely more positive than yesterday’s race,” said Spies, who finished 19.135 behind Mladin on Saturday. “I stuck behind Aaron the first few laps and then tried to drop the hammer and just stayed with (Mladin). We made a few little in-roads on a few laps, but I got into lapped traffic, and I could see that he got help up, and then I got help up. Lapped traffic just kind of equalized us for a bit. It looked like every time I sped up, he did too. At the end, I just had to ride too hard to catch up, so we just settled in for second.”

Spies admitted, for the second straight day, that he didn’t feel comfortable keeping the same pace as Mladin. But Spies did earn the pole on Friday with a 1:34.992 for a new track record. That was on his original bike, which he crashed during his final qualifying lap. He’s been riding his backup since but claims he doesn’t feel any difference between the two.

He added that the second-place finish was a little frustrating but not demoralizing.

One finish that was not disappointing to its rider was Zemke’s podium spot. He finished 20.381 behind Spies and 5.435 ahead of Duhamel. Tommy Hayden (Suzuki) was fifth. It was the San Francisco native’s second third-place finish of the season, the first coming at Daytona. Zemke is the only rider other than Mladin and Spies to win a race since Yates on Sept. 4, 2005. Zemke won at Utah last June.

“Yesterday was a little tougher for me, even though we finished fifth, but hats off to my crew,” Zemke said. “They did such an awesome job overnight. We were strong at the end of the race yesterday, but struggled at the beginning.

“It feels like forever since the podium at Daytona, so it’s great to be here today. I don’t mind riding by myself, but I’d much rather do it in first than in third. It got a little lonely out there. Mat did an awesome job.”

Napa Valley Register Copyright © 2009