Road Atlanta Superbike
Michael Jordan Motorsports (MJM) scored a podium and maintains the championship points lead after completing races five and six of the 2010 AMA Pro National Guard American Superbike Championship held at Road Atlanta in Braselton, GA this weekend.
National Guard Jordan Suzuki’s Jake Zemke scored a third place podium finish on Saturday and finished fourth in Sunday’s race. Aaron Yates’ replacement rider, Brett McCormick, had a tough first weekend, crashing out of Saturday’s race and experiencing a mechanical issue on Sunday after nine laps.
National Guard Jordan Suzuki’s Zemke found himself involved in a four-man battle at the front for the entire 20-lap race on Saturday. Zemke had slipped into second in the final stages but was unable to hold off the pack as he crossed the line in fourth.
Zemke was later awarded a third place podium finish after the race winner, Graves Yamaha’s Josh Hayes, was assessed a 21.4 second penalty. On Sunday, Zemke was slightly off the pace, maintaining a fourth place position throughout most of the race and finishing fourth. Zemke heads to the next event at Infineon Raceway with a four point lead in the championship.
Jake Zemke says: “Saturday wasn’t horrible,” Zemke said. “We got out there in the race and the pace was quite a bit slower than what we’d been running in practice and with the guys in front of us, we just couldn’t seem to get off the corners. Today, it seemed like I was getting yanked off the slower corners, so we changed quite a bit on the bike – changed the gearing, changed everything to try and fix that problem and we just ended up shooting ourselves in the foot a little bit.”
“Every time we’re going out, we’re learning and unfortunately we learned a hard one this weekend. We’ve definitely got to get our act together if we’re going to win this championship, so we’ll put our heads together and see what we can come up with for Infineon. I’m still leading the points, but it’s not even worth saying I’m leading right now.”
“Tommy’s running good right now and obviously Josh and Blake this weekend, they were definitely running real strong as well, so it’s going to be a fight to the end and that’s why we got to get on our game and make sure we’re there every week.”
This weekend’s event was particularly significant for Georgia Army National Guard’s 48th Infantry Brigade Combat Team. Jake Zemke’s National Guard Suzuki GSX-R1000 was sporting the state patch in honor of the historic combat brigade. The corresponding National Guard state patches will be placed on Zemke’s Suzuki for the remainder of the 2010 season.
The 2010 Michael Jordan Motorsports team’s next event will be at the West Coast Moto Jam at Infineon Raceway in Sonoma, CA on May 14-16, 2010.
