AMA Superbike Report
Ben Bostrom, Tommy Aquino and Cameron Beaubier staked their claim on the AMA Pro Road Racing weekend activities at the West Coast Moto Jam as the first round of qualifying concluded on a picture perfect day at Infineon Raceway.
After a somewhat quiet start to the season, Ben Bostrom and his Pat Clark Motorsports Yamaha jumped back into contention with an absolute flier on his very last lap of qualifying to steal the top spot from Josh Hayes, who had been quickest in practice and most of qualifying until the very end of the session.
Hayes, on his Team Graves Yamaha had taken his career first AMA Pro National Guard American SuperBike victory here last year and set the pace from the opening lap of practice.
In qualifying, Hayes was in a league of his own with an early lap of 1:36.184 which looked unbeatable until Bostrom went one better with a lap of 1:36.108 to take the provisional pole position for the doubleheader races this weekend.
Bostrom attributed his improved pace to the overall chemistry that has been evolving since the beginning of the season with the Pat Clark Motorsports Team.
Ben Bostrom says: "It takes time to get things just right, we have been getting better and even though we were better at the last race, we didn’t get the results we thought we could have," said Bostrom.
After Hayes, Jake Holden, riding for John Ulrich and the M4 Monster Energy Suzuki team in place of the injured John Hopkins, showed tremendous pace by running up front in practice and then posted the third fastest time of 1:36.646 before suffering an accident at turn five in the closing moments of the qualifying session. Holden was uninjured in the mishap.
The Rockstar Makita Suzuki teammates of Tommy Hayden and Blake Young finished the session in fourth and fifth places after both riders showed good speed.
Final qualifying is tomorrow before the first of two races on Saturday and Sunday, both of which will be shown on SPEED TV in same day broadcasts. Check your local listing for broadcast times.
