DOUBLE FOR SPIES
09 August 2006 - Suzuki Racing

Team Yoshimura Suzuki’s Ben Spies won his 10th AMA Superbike race of the season at Mid-Ohio in Lexington on Sunday

He repeated his victorious performance from Saturday’s Superbike race as team mate and defending AMA Superbike Champion Mat Mladin finished in second place.

With the victory, Spies became only the third rider ever to sweep a double-header AMA Superbike race weekend at Mid-Ohio; the other two riders were his team mates Mladin and Aaron Yates – who crashed out of this weekend’s race.

“It was harder today than it was yesterday,” said 22-year-old Spies. “Mat and Miguel Duhamel picked up the pace. My Yoshimura Suzuki GSX-R1000 is working awesome and I just tried to ride my own race. It’s good to see two Suzukis up here on the podium again.”

The 26-lap race saw Spies get a great start and lead every lap to take the victory and extend his points lead in the title chase. “The Superbike Championship is the biggest thing in my mind and it has been all year,” said Spies. “The bike is working great and we just want to keep doing what we’ve been doing all season. The Championship is what we’re shooting for and whatever else comes with that will just be icing on the cake.”

Like Spies, Mladin also got a good start and battled for second place for most of the 26 laps. He was successful in the end and happy with the result.
“It was a close race and Ben did a great job,” said six-time AMA Superbike Champion Mladin. “At the start, I had nothing for Ben and I had settled on coming in third. But then with about six or seven laps to go, I decided to have a run at Miguel. I never thought I’d have so much fun racing for second place.”

Yates had a tougher time. He had a rough start and was working his way through the field when another rider crashed in front of him. He was unable to get around the other rider and went down himself.

“I didn’t get as good of a start as I needed,” said Yates. “It took me a couple of laps to start catching the leaders. But the Yoshimura Suzuki GSX-R1000 was running good and I was able to get through the traffic. But then Ben Bostrom high-sided right in front of me and I tried to go inside but I didn’t make it.”

AMA Superbike Top 10 Finishers:

1 Ben Spies (Yoshimura Suzuki)
2 Mat Mladin (Yoshimura Suzuki)
3 Ben Bostrom (Ducati)
4 Jake Zemke (Honda)
5 Neil Hodgson (Ducati)
6 Jason Pridmore (Jordan Suzuki)
7 Tommy Hayden (Kawasaki)
8 Roger Lee Hayden (Kawasaki)
9 Jake Holden (Jordan Suzuki)
10 Matt Lynn (Suzuki)

Championship Points (after 15 races): 1 Spies 501, 2 Mladin 456, 3 Duhamel 387, 4 Hodgson 358, 5 T Hayden 354, 6 Yates 335, 7 Zemke 325, 8 Pridmore 285, 9 Bostrom 284, 10 Pegram 260.

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