AMA Superbike
Michael Jordan Motorsports (MJM) maintains a strong third place in the championship points race after completing round nine of the 2010 AMA Pro National Guard American Superbike Championship held at New Jersey Motorsports Park in Millville, NJ this weekend.
National Guard Jordan Suzuki’s Jake Zemke scored sixth place finishes on both Saturday and Sunday. Brett McCormick, riding for the injured Aaron Yates, raced to seventh place on Saturday, finishing in fifth on Sunday.
On Saturday, after qualifying fifth, National Guard Jordan Suzuki’s Zemke had a great start and shot into third place by the first turn.
Zemke pulled into second by lap three and was able to maintain that position for several laps before falling back and finishing sixth. On Sunday, Zemke was fourth after the first lap and was able to work his way up to second until a red flag halted the event.
A strong restart put Zemke in third for a number of laps before he eventually fell off to another sixth place finish. Zemke sits solidly in third in the championship points race with a 21-point lead over fourth place heading into the final round of the season at Barber Motorsports Park in Birmingham, AL.
Jake Zemke says: “Yesterday we lost grip with the front, but we lost it really early. We lost it after five laps, where today we made it twelve before the problems came back. We’re definitely making progress in the right direction. At least we can run a pace that can keep us up front.”
“Now we just have to figure out how to get the bike to stay in that zone; then we’ll be okay. I feel a lot better than I did the last few races for sure. At least now we have a direction for the bike; the bike’s working well. We need to make it work longer. If we can do that, we’ll be good and can hopefully finish off the last round strong.”
On Saturday, Michael Jordan Motorsports’ McCormick started in seventh but lost a couple of positions by the second lap. McCormick was able to work his way back up to seventh by lap ten, which is where he stayed until he crashed on the final lap and brought out the red flag.
Scoring went back to the last lap, which gave McCormick a seventh place finish. On Sunday, McCormick again started in seventh but this time was able to slowly work his way toward the front and scored a solid fifth place finish. McCormick sits ninth in the championship points race with one more round to go.
Brett McCormick says: “Today was a lot different than yesterday. Yesterday I messed up the start and I kind of knew it. Going into today’s race, I just wanted to play it a little more mellow off the start and not make any mistakes mentally.”
“I knew I had the bike that could do the pace and was charging as hard as I could but just couldn’t quite get there and settled for my fifth. I’m definitely really happy. That’s the closest I’ve been to the leaders so far this season. Today I was 7.7 to the leaders; the closest before today was 25, so that’s a solid finish. Barber is next and I’ve been there a couple of times on full-on race bikes, up to speed, so we’ll give them a shot there.”
Look for the 2010 Michael Jordan Motorsports team at their final event of the season at Barber Motorsports Park in Birmingham, Ala. on Sept. 24-26, 2010.
