2012 AMA Pro National Guard SuperBike
Spoiler Alert: AMA SuperBike race two results from Barber Motorsports Park listed below
Two-time defending AMA Pro National Guard SuperBike king Josh Hayes hit the quarter-century mark on Sunday at Barber Motorsports Park, registering the 25th victory of his SuperBike career. The Mississippian’sAMA Pro Road Racing double win at the Triumph SuperBike Classic presented by America’s First Federal Credit Union also marked his eighth triumph of the season and his fifth in succession.
While much was made of the learning opportunity Hayes’ Monster Energy Graves Yamaha teammate, Josh Herrin, enjoyed on Saturday by racing on the SuperBike champ’s rear wheel, Hayes was made all the wiser by that experience as well.
Unwilling to give Herrin a chance to cling on again, Hayes raced exceptionally hard early and quickly eliminated any hope Herrin or any other rival might have entertained about sticking with him today.
Hayes ultimately took the checkered flag with a 4.988-second margin of victory. “I got a decent start and slotted in right behind Josh,” Hayes said. “I eased up inside of him in Turn 4 and got in there. At that point I just tried to get back into a rhythm. Things were going pretty good — at one point I opened up a second on Josh and was kind of holding it there for a couple laps. When I saw that he took it back, I said, ‘okay, don’t deviate from your game plan,’ because I was doing a good pace and not making mistakes. I wanted to keep up a good steady pace and see what happened and then I came around and saw a three-second gap. There you go. It’s so hot and so slippery — there was the mistake I was waiting to see if it would happen. I maintained my gap and stayed clear and had a good smooth race.”
Despite Hayes’ determination to shake free at the start and make an early escape, Herrin gave it his best effort to reel his teammate back in… and paid the price. Attempting to make up an early one-second deficit, the National Guard SuperBike freshman ran off track in Turn 4 on the race’s fifth lap and was instantly dropped back to ninth.
That’s the same position Yoshimura Racing Suzuki’s Blake Young had held on the race’s opening lap, suffering from a poor start and almost falling outside the top ten. The Wisconsin rider sliced his way up the field, however, and was in position to take control of second when Herrin made his error.
Herrin made a similar charge and by lap 11 was right on Young’s rear wheel. The Suzuki and Yamaha men waged a closely-matched duel from there to the flag. Herrin reclaimed second on lap 19 but handed it back the next lap again after running wide in Turn 4. He mounted another charge and made a stab for second on the final lap, again in turn 4, but was unable to hold his line and Young dipped right back through and held on to ultimately claim the runner-up position.
Young said, “Well, the start was a little bit of a struggle and I found myself quite a ways back in the pack. I just thought, ‘wow, I really messed up and made a lot of work for myself that I really didn’t want to have to deal with today. That’s how it goes. You have a plan before the start but it never goes according to plan — ever. I wasn’t expecting that but I put my head down and felt better on my GSX-R1000 today.”
Herrin admitted, “It was a crazy race. I just made way too many mistakes in the race today and lost too many positions due to it. That’s the first time I’ve had any close moments on the 1000 all year, but luckily I was able to recover from it and come back from way back. That felt really good and I have a lot of motivation.”
Team Amsoil/Hero EBR’s Geoff May continued his mid-season run of impressive performances, working his way past Michael Jordan Motorsports teammates Ben Bostrom (Jordan Suzuki) and Roger Hayden (National Guard Jordan Suzuki) on successive laps and then breaking away to claim a clear fourth.
Hayden stormed past Bostrom on lap 19 of 21 to steal the final position in the top five.
Attack Performance’s Steve Rapp ran with the freight train of heavy hitters early before fading back to a lonely seventh. Foremost Insurance Pegram Racing’s Larry Pegram took his BMW S1000RR to eighth while Kneedraggers.com/Motul/Fly Racing’s David Anthony and M4 Suzuki’s Chris Ulrich completed the top ten.
Hayes now leads the points 320 to 283 over Young.
AMA Pro Road Racing will immediately pack up and head to NOLA Motorsports Park in New Orleans, LA for a two-day official series test on June 26-27. The next round of the 2012 AMA Pro Road Racing season will be the Buckeye SuperBike Weekend presented by Dunlop Tire at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course, in Lexington, Ohio, July 13-15.
2012 Barber AMA SuperBike Race 2 Results:
Pos | No. | Rider(s) | Team | Bike | Interval | Gap | Best Lap | Points |
1. | 1 | Josh Hayes | Monster Energy Graves Yamaha | Yamaha R1 | 21 Laps | WINNER | 1:26.021 | 0 |
2. | 79 | Blake Young | Yoshimura Racing | Suzuki GSX-R1000 | 4.988 | 4.988 | 1:26.605 | 0 |
3. | 2 | Josh Herrin | Monster Energy Graves Yamaha | Yamaha R1 | 7.298 | 2.310 | 1:25.784 | 0 |
4. | 99 | Geoff May | Team Amsoil/Hero | EBR 1190RS | 12.384 | 5.085 | 1:26.883 | 0 |
5. | 54 | Roger Hayden | National Guard Jordan Suzuki | Suzuki GSX-R1000 | 14.339 | 1.954 | 1:26.635 | 0 |
6. | 23 | Ben Bostrom | Jordan Suzuki | Suzuki GSX-R1000 | 15.313 | 0.973 | 1:26.837 | 0 |
7. | 15 | Steve Rapp | Attack Performance | Kawasaki ZX-10 | 19.598 | 4.285 | 1:26.996 | 0 |
8. | 72 | Larry Pegram | Foremost Insurance/Pegram Racing | BMW S1000RR | 25.282 | 5.684 | 1:27.158 | 0 |
9. | 25 | David Anthony | Kneedraggers.com/ Motul/Fly Racing | Suzuki GSX-R1000 | 40.212 | 14.929 | 1:28.138 | 0 |
10. | 18 | Chris Ulrich | M4 Roadracingworld.com Suzuki | Suzuki GSX-R1000 | 40.753 | 0.540 | 1:28.034 | 0 |
11. | 12 | Stefan Nebel | KTM/HMC Racing | KTM RC8R | 42.355 | 1.601 | 1:27.930 | 0 |
12. | 17 | Trent Gibson | Seven Sports | Suzuki GSX-R1000 | 1:04.381 | 22.026 | 1:29.065 | 0 |
13. | 86 | Jason Farrell | Farrell Performance/Southeast Sales Kawasaki | Kawasaki ZX-10 | 1:04.938 | 0.557 | 1:29.440 | 0 |
14. | 33 | Jordan Burgess | Kneedraggers.com/ Motul/Fly Racing | Suzuki GSX-R1000 | 1:11.312 | 6.373 | 1:29.063 | 0 |
15. | 511 | Tim J. Bemisderfer | Vesrah Suzuki | Suzuki GSX-R1000 | 1:34.360 | 23.048 | 1:29.425 | 0 |
16. | 20 | Sean Dwyer | Vicious Cycle Racing | Suzuki GSX-R1000 | 20 Laps | 1 Lap | 1:29.620 | 0 |
17. | 6 | Chris Clark | Yoshimura Racing | Suzuki GSX-R1000 | 13 Laps | 7 Laps | 1:27.189 | 0 |
18. | 78 | Reese Wacker | Wacker Racing LLC | Suzuki GSX-R1000 | 8 Laps | 5 Laps | 1:28.873 | 0 |
19. | 69 | Danny Eslick | Team Hero | EBR 1190RS | 5 Laps | 3 Laps | 1:26.663 | 0 |
20. | 3 | Robertino Pietri | Team Venezuela | Suzuki GSX-R1000 | 4 Laps | 1 Lap | 1:29.883 | 0 |
21. | 11 | Chris Fillmore | KTM/HMC Racing | KTM RC8R | DNS | DNS | -no times- | 0 |