SONOMA — Ben Spies showboated his way across the finish line in Sunday’s Superstock race doing a standup wheelie to take the checkered flag at Infineon Raceway.

“Yeah it was good; the biked worked awesome and made it real easy on me,” Spies said, thanking his crew and sponsor. “I have to thank my guys. We didn’t have to change much, which says a lot about Suzuki. We didn’t make any mistakes and just led from the front and got more points.”

The Yoshimura Suzuki rider was the pole sitter of the 17-lap race but was passed out of the gate by Geoff May (Suzuki). One lap later, Spies was still second but behind Aaron Yates (Suzuki). Spies managed the pass on Turn 7 of Lap 6 and never relinquished the lead.

Once Spies jumped ahead of Yates, he extended his lead all the way up to 3.055 seconds before Yates took a spill on Turn 7 during Lap 14. Yates finished seventh. Since the two Suzukis were running so far ahead of May and Petaluma native Ben Bostrom (Yamaha) — who were neck and neck — Spies increased his lead to 11.642. He eventually won by 11.177 seconds. May and Bostrom were second and third, respectively.

“Well, I got a really, really good start and just tried to run my own pace,” May said. “It’s hard to pass here, and I wanted to make everyone work hard for it today. Everyone was riding clean. Aaron and Ben were pushing really hard, but I didn’t have anything for them in the middle of the race. They kind of got away from me and got into some lappers. The lappers weren’t paying attention to the flaggers, and I lost my gap in traffic. I was being really defensive toward the end.”

Spies’ win was his third in the class this season and sixth career. It was also his first at Sonoma’s 12-turn, 2.22-mile road course. He extended his points lead to 141 — 23 ahead of Yates, who’s notched one win this year, at Barber where Spies finished second. Bostrom closed the gap between himself and Yates to just one point at 117 points, for third place while May and Danny Eslick (Suzuki) stand in fourth (111) and fifth (104), respectively.

“The bike’s fantastic — rider wasn’t too fantastic,” Bostrom admitted. “That’s all we can do is keep trying. I though we were going for a podium as soon as I saw Aaron go down. The wind wasn’t’ a problem. I got really snookered into Turn 9, but after that it started to help you out in several sports. After lap 2, all the riders knew (about the win). Actually, it keeps you cool and changes things up a bit.”

Jamie Hacking got a raw deal in Sunday’s Supersport race. The Kawasaki rider passed Josh Hayes (Honda) on Lap 15 but since a red flag was called seconds later, race results reverted back to the Lap 14 leader — which was Hayes. Roger Hayden (Kawasaki) was third — both before the red flag and after.

“Unfortunately, we didn’t pull off the win, but we put in a good effort and kind of got held up behind those guys on the start and sat behind them,” Hacking said. “We picked up the pace and got by them. The Monster Kawasaki was really good today. The front tire started sliding really bad on me, so I backed it down a little bit and had a couple close moments. Josh was riding really good today; I just wasn’t able to push it very hard.”

Hayes added, “Man, what a great race. What can I say? Parts Unlimited and Erion Honda, it’s a bad machine. Everybody needs to get themselves a Honda 600. I had so much fun racing with those guys.”

Sunday was Hayes’ second Supersport win of season and his career. He’s logged two victories at Infineon, the first coming on Saturday in the Formula Xtreme race. Hayes stays first in points with 133 while Hayden stands in second (121), Lafayette native Steve Rapp in third (105) and Hacking (103) and Tommy Hayden (100) lay in fourth and fifth, respectively.

“It was a pretty good race for me,” Roger Hayden said. “I got a good start. I started sliding around a little bit there at the halfway point. I tried to hang on, got in traffic, and I just stayed on it in case anybody made a mistake. We’d like to do better, but it’s not too bad. We got some points and we’ll go on to next week.”

Yamaha’s Brant Wiwi caused the red flag when he crashed. He was evaluated and released from the track’s medical center.

Garrett Carter (Yamaha) suffered a concussion in Sunday’s Supersport practice when he went down in Turn 10. He was airlifted to Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital and diagnosed with a concussion and will remain in the hospital overnight for observations.

It was a one-bike, low-side incident into the hay bales, which caught on fire though Carter did not suffer any burns. Once the debris was cleared, Infineon Raceway moved 32 feet of Airfence from the top of Turn 10 to the exit, where Carter went down.