Road Atlanta Saturday
On Saturday at Road Atlanta Team M4 Monster Energy Suzuki’s Martin Cardenas returned to the scene of his first career AMA Pro win and came away with another stunning AMA Pro Daytona SportBike victory.
Just a little over a year following that breakthrough first triumph, Cardenas now boasts nine wins, but few have been more breathtaking than Saturday’s remarkable display of racecraft.
The Colombian rocketed into the lead from his front-row grid position earned earlier in the day before quickly finding himself caught up in a race-long multi-rider dogfight for first. With positions being swapped repeatedly on just about every lap, Cardenas bid his time before finally striking just over two laps from the end.
Ducking out of the draft aboard his GSX-R600 on the fast back straight, Cardenas moved from fourth to first in an instant thanks to a deft maneuver in which he took full advantage of both his machine’s speed and stability on the brakes. Once in the lead, Martin laid down a pair of perfect laps that allowed him to just break the draft of his pursuers and seal his second win of 2010.
Martin Cardenas says: "I got a good start and I led the first couple of laps before some of the guys came by. I was kind of sitting behind them and I was just trying to hang on. I was trying to keep them very close to me because I knew the last few laps were going to be decisive. Any of the four leaders could have won.
"Two laps from the end, I got a good draft and passed them on the braking. I pushed for two laps, put my head down, and tried to not make any mistakes and go as fast as I could so I could gap them a little bit so they couldn’t draft back by me on the back straight. It worked out. It was very good racing and very tough.
"It’s nice to have two wins this year. But also, there are two crashes, so tomorrow I will try not to crash and make up some more points. I’ll always try to win if possible, and if not, I’ll do the best I can."
On Sunday Team M4 Monster Energy Suzuki will look to return to the podium at Road Atlanta in the final half of the weekend’s SportBike and Superbike doubleheaders.
