Behind The Box Score

Superbike racing wins at the 2.4-mile Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course are usually taken by either Mat Mladin, or Miguel Duhamel. But this weekend, the story belonged to the 34-year old Josh Hayes, as he took both of the American Superbike titles from the Honda Super Cycle Weekend at Mid-Ohio. He lead for all of Sunday’s race, minus the start. He passed Tommy Hayden in the esses (turn 6) on the first lap, and only had one other stumble, when he was passed by Ben Bostrom on the same turn 6, only to see Bostrom nearly lose control of his bike after making the pass, and was forced to fall back to second. “One lap I had a full second gap, and the rest of the time I had these guys breathing down my neck.  This is what you feel good about; when you go home you know that you put it all out there, that these guys were having a good day too and you came out on top.  It doesn’t matter how much you win by, it’s the difference between racing and just going fast around a race track.” Hayes said of his nearly one second victory over Aaron Yates.

The series points leader, Mat Mladin, finished seventh on his No. 7 Rockstar/Makita Yoshimura Suzuki GSX-R1000. His lead is still very controlling, holding the series over Tommy Hayden by 126 points still. Mladin had swept last year’s races at Mid-Ohio.