Spies storms to Superstock win too

June 03, 2007

Chris Martin

Yoshimura Suzuki’s Ben Spies closed out what was threatening to be a disappointing Road America weekend in tremendous fashion, adding a Superstock victory to his Sunday afternoon AMA Superbike triumph.

Still recovering from a hard fall following a massive highside in Saturday’s Superbike warm-up practice, Spies showed an uncanny mastery of the tricky Sunday conditions, backing up his successful Superbike rain ride by winning the Superstock final on a drying racetrack.

Spies tracked down early leader Geoff May on the Team M4 EMGO Suzuki GSX-R1000 and took the lead on lap 7 of 10. While May pushed him to the flag, Spies carried on to pick up his fourth Superstock win in five tries this season.

Afterwards the defending Superbike champ explained that tire choice was critical. “There’s no way rains or intermediates were going to get it done, but also I didn't really want to ride for about half the race being on slicks. They were just making me calm down and telling me to go slow because that’s exactly what bit me yesterday in similar conditions. At the start Geoff he came blazing by me and I was like, ‘well, he keeps that pace up or I don't go faster there’s no way’… He got a couple of couple seconds out and the track was getting a little bit better.

“We closed back up. I knew on a dry track we were pretty good from practice and stuff, but it definitely it wasn’t dry. He made just two little bitty mistakes that allowed me to get up to him and then when we made the pass I just tried to not go blazing in a couple laps, but just not make any mistakes and keep a decent pace up and it worked out today.”

By leading the most laps and taking a second straight runner-up finish, May moved into a tie with fourth-place finisher Ben Bostrom for second place in the standings.

“I really thought I could win the thing the whole time, even down to the white flag,” May commented. “I felt like I could get into some corners better and he was better than me in a couple other places. Obviously Ben rode a better race than me today.

“I screwed up in Turn 3 twice, pretty big. I got off in there and lost it in a wet patch, and then that made me go really wide. Out wide it was completely wet. I tried to get on the gas and the thing would spin like you were in the grass. It was pretty hairy. I also screwed up once when he was catching me in Canada Corner. I got off in there pretty hot and lost the front and the rear at the same time. I lost both ends and then the thing hooked back up. My knee hit the ground, kind of stood the bike up and saved it all at once. I thought I was going down.”

HALOF Racing’s Scott Jensen had quietly been putting together a solid season, stringing together four straight top tens in the Superstock class. His strong form became a whole lot more visible on Sunday, however, as he overhauled KWS Motorsports’ John Haner, who battled with May for the lead early in the race, with three laps remaining to secure a third-place finish.

It was Jensen’s first career AMA podium. He said, “I really didn’t expect to be up here today. We’ve been struggling a little bit this weekend with some set-up and trying to make some things work right. We made huge improvements with the bike this morning in practice. We gambled a little bit with our tire choice and it definitely worked out in our favor.

“Haner was running well but it seemed like he was fading towards the end. I was eating away at the time on him pretty good and I saw him coming back to me slowly. I wasn’t going to leave anything out there, that’s for sure. I was going to give everything we had to try to put the thing up on the podium and it worked out for us. The competition in the class is obviously pretty tough but I sure hope this is the start of something to say the least.”

Haner eventually finished fifth, one spot behind Yamaha runner Bostrom.

Jordan Suzuki’s Jake Holden and Roadracingworld.com Suzuki’s Robertino Pietri finished sixth and seventh, respectively. Holden’s teammate, Aaron Yates, Haner’s teammate, David Weber, and MPT Racing’s Blake Young completed the top ten.

Title favorite Spies will now carry a 30-point championship advantage into Miller Motorsports Park on June 22-24.