Ama Superbike Championship, Fontana

[Andy]

Results AMA California Speedway

Climate: Sunny

Temperature: 33 degrees

Duhamel Third in the Championship

American Honda's Miguel Duhamel maintained his third place in the AMA

Superbike Championship despite a frustrating weekend at California

Speedway in Fontana, California.

Duhamel and teammate Jake Zemke swapped finishing positions from

Saturday to Sunday. Duhamel was fifth on Saturday and sixth on

Sunday, Zemke was just the opposite. Both made improvements from one

day to the next, but each had their own difficulties.

Heat played into Duhamel's fifth place on Saturday. The surface of

the track east of Los Angeles heated up considerably, with

temperatures rising to 50 degrees. That somewhat negated much of the

work the team had done throughout practice and qualifying.

On Sunday he was balked by another rider at the start, then

repeatedly struck bad luck with lapped riders in his pursuit of fourth place.

Zemke raced Duhamel and Tommy Hayden, the brother of Repsol Honda's

world champion Nicky Hayden, on Sunday, getting the better of him and

carding his better finish. The trio battled hard throughout, Hayden

getting the better of the two Honda riders at the end, but only by

tenths of a second.

After five of 18 races, Duhamel has 141 points to 173 for Suzuki's

Ben Spies, and 164 for his teammate Mat Mladin.

Spies won Saturday's race from Mladin, with Mladin turning the cards

on Spies on Sunday.

Miguel Duhamel, 5th Place, 6th Place

Saturday

The bike was wonderful during qualifying, the last qualifier. It

should have been on the front row and I was really disappointed with

that. But I was so confident in the race. The track went from 30C to

50C. The bike was totally different, totally different. I tried as

hard as I could. It was pretty much a handful. The bike was just not

giving me the same feedback. It was like riding a different bike. So

I tried to hang in there as long as I could. It wasn't too bad.

Unfortunately we got fifth. Eric (Bostrom) came by, tried to stick

with Eric. And then Tommy (Hayden) came by, tried to stick with him

and I did. Tried to reel him in at the end, but he got a second wind.

Couldn't catch him. Hopefully this won't be a turning point for the

championship later on in the season.

Sunday

Everybody else rode good. Tommy (Hayden) and Jake (Zemke) were right

there. With about five, six laps to go I really put a big effort in;

I think got back into the 24's and got right on them. And I said, OK,

I just got to lead that last lap. And I was thinking maybe a two for

one, maybe Jake's going to try something and I'm going to try to get

these both guys. Jake couldn't get quite back up to Tommy, so then

I got on Jake and I was going to try to make a move and try to get

Tommy and lapped riders came in.

The bike is good. it's extremely frustrating, because I felt I could

have done a little bit better, not win, but get a lot closer to the

top five or the top four. And the team is good, the bike is good, and

it'd be a shame to say at the end of the year that we get pretty

close but we come up short because I couldn't get by a lapped rider.

Jake Zemke, 6th Place, 5th Place

Saturday

At the beginning there we were able to make a couple of passes, get

up to fourth. As the race wore on, obviously Eric (Bostrom) got quite

strong in the race and was able to run consistent laps and that's

what we weren't able to do and our times dropped off a little bit

there. But hopefully we made some improvements on that this morning.

We're going to go try a couple different things. It wasn't great, but

it wasn't horrible. At least we didn't run into the same problems we

had at Barber. It was a little bit of a step forward.

Sunday

We accomplished one goal; we were consistent over the course of the

race, whereas yesterday we fell off pretty bad timewise. We were just

a little bit greasy on the side of the tire when we're in the middle

of the corner. I was trying to get a run at Tommy (Hayden) coming to

the white flag out of the last corner there and I just lost both

ends. Then I got stuck. There's a seam there and if you get your

wheels in the seam you're all done. And I got into the seam and it

pushed again. I still kind of caught back up to him, but I never had

an opportunity to make a pass anywhere. It was definitely a lot

better than yesterday. The boys made the bike a lot better overnight.

They got the bike to turn a little bit better. Like I said, we were

consistent over the course of the race more so than yesterday for

sure. It was a lot better, but still not the results we're looking for.

Team manager Ron Heben

We continue to make a lot of progress. Obviously the competition is

making progress itself. Today both Miguel (Duhamel) and Jake (Zemke)

made some improvements on their settings from yesterday's race. And

we really felt that we could put both of those guys, or at least one

of them, on the box today. Obviously, look at the competition; it's

getting tougher and tougher. We're going to take what we learned from

this race, go to our next test, and then go to Infineon (Raceway)

with the intention of going up there and doing good.

Race One:

1. Ben Spies (Suzuki)

2. Mat Mladin (Suzuki)

3. Eric Bostrom (Yamaha)

4. Tommy Hayden (Suzuki)

5. Miguel Duhamel (Honda)

6. Jake Zemke (Honda)

7. Aaron Yates (Suzuki)

8. Roger Lee Hayden (Kawasaki)

9. Jason DiSalvo (Yamaha)

10. Matt Lynn (MV Agusta)

Race Two:

1. Mat Mladin (Suzuki)

2. Ben Spies (Suzuki)

3. Eric Bostrom (Yamaha)

4. Tommy Hayden (Suzuki)

5. Jake Zemke (Honda)

6. Miguel Duhamel (Honda)

7. Roger Lee Hayden (Kawasaki)

8. Jamie Hacking (Kawasaki)

9. Aaron Yates (Suzuki)

10. Jason DiSalvo (Yamaha)

Championship Standings:

1. Ben Spies (Suzuki) 173

2. Mat Mladin (Suzuki) 173

3. Miguel Duhamel (Honda) 141

4. Tommy Hayden (Suzuki) 130

5. Jake Zemke (Honda) 126

6. Aaron Yates (Suzuki) 119

7. Eric Bostrom (Yamaha) 116

8. Jason DiSalvo (Yamaha) 114

9. Jamie Hacking (Kawasaki) 90

10. Roger Lee Hayden (Kawasaki) 89