For the last two races, Blake Young has passed up Josh Hayes on the final lap to take the race win. But that wasn’t happening today. Hayes took the lead early at Road America, and extended his lead to more than three seconds before cruising to his second victory of the season.
“I had a different game plan,” Hayes said. “I told myself that I wasn’t going down like that again. I was confident that I had the tools to make it happen. Once I saw a .5 gap, I knew I could either let them close it back in or I could go for broke.
“I was OK with making a couple of mistakes, running wide or something. So I just did the best as I could. I rode as hard as I could and eventually I got out there to about three seconds.”
Blake Young took the first victory of the weekend, but wasn’t able to hang with Hayes in race two. Young would end up with a third place finish behind his teammate Tommy Hayden.
“I knew today’s pace was going to be a little bit quicker,” Young said. “All it really took is one lap for me to kind of settle in, and one lap for Josh to really nail it. After that I was just trying to get back up to him. I thought we might have a chance to get back up to him, but it just wasn’t happening.
“I’m happy with third. I would have rather had the win, obviously. But I’ve got a few weeks off now to do some training and I’m looking forward to Barber.”
Tommy has finished in third for the last two races, but was able to get the best of his teammate today.
“It was more of a two way battle today between me and Blake,” Hayden said. “I knew that if we gave Josh a little gap it would be hard to close down. But he put his head down and really opened it up. We tried to track him down. I’m happy to move up a spot to second, but I’d like to be up in the front at Barber.”
Behind the top three riders, Martin Cardenas crossed the line in fourth before Roger Hayden took the final spot in the top five.
The AMA Superbike series was tied at the top going into today’s race, but now Hayes will have a slight lead in the standings.
AMA Superbike Results - Road America - Race 2
- Hayes
- Hayden
- Young
- Cardenas
- R. Hayden
- Rapp
- Pegram
- Peris
- Clark
- Bostrom
{jwpics 108,109,110,106,107,111}
