MILLVILLE, NJ, SEPT 4 - The AMA Pro Road Racing Superbike championship was one of the most exciting ever, with the fight for the number one plate
coming down to the final half lap of the final race of the all too short season.
With just over half of the 2.25-mile New Jersey Motorsports Park road course
to be covered the championship was in the hands of Rockstar Makita Suzuki's
Blake Young. In order to wrest the title from Monster Energy Graves Yamaha's
Josh Hayes, Young not only had to win Sunday's season finale, but he also
had to lead the most laps and he needed Hayes to finish fourth or worse, and
that's exactly where things stood with just over half a lap to go.
Young, who'd been a disappointing fifth on Saturday, was leading, narrowly,
but leading all the same. Second was National Guard Jordan Suzuki's Roger
Lee Hayden, Jordan Suzuki's Ben Bostrom was third, then came Hayes, watching
his championship hopes slip away with every corner.
The race had been fought among those four, Rockstar Makita Suzuki's Tommy
Hayden, and a few others before attrition took its toll. Steve Rapp was in
the mix aboard the Attack Kawasaki before he fell in turn six, the victim of
a wrong tire choice. Foremost Insurance Pegram Racing's Larry Pegram was in
the thick of the lead group when he ran off the track on the 16th lap. And
Hayden's race came to a crashing end in turn one on the 18th lap, when he
ran wide going for the lead, hit a bump and tucked the front. He was unhurt.
That left the lead group at four for the final run, with Young at the front
from the 15th lap on and defending at crunch time. Bostrom had been
aggressive in the turn six left, sticking it in on riders in places, Hayes
said, "where you can't pass." But it wasn't Bostrom who would decide the
championship. It was Young.
"I had a pretty good idea what happened," Hayes said from his vantage point
in fourth place. "I raced with Blake quite a bit. I know when he's pretty
determined, he'll just kinda let go of the brake lever and lean it towards
the apex and it can be pretty dodgy for everybody when that happens
sometimes. And that's what it looked like.
"I saw Rog (Hayden) get up next to him. It looked like Blake just went, 'No,
I don't think so. Not today.' And let go of the brake lever and pointed
himself at the apex and that put Roger into trouble. And Ben was already
looking at Roger and you had three guys looking at each other and I think
Ben was pretty determined that he was going to go to the front in turn six,
whether we all liked it or not."
Hayes was right. Bostrom said to himself on the last lap, "OK, I just got to
sweep in there pretty quick. I thought I was gifted it, because Blake had
made a small error, Rog got up next to him, was going by him. Blake
reaccelerated and sawed off Roger's front in a pretty scary spot. That stood
Roger up, but I'd already swooped in there 10 mph quicker on race line and
race pace, thinking, 'OK, I'm going to go from third to first, I'm going to
brake into the tight hairpin.' But Rog got stood up so hard because Blake
had taken his front wheel that he stood up and that stood me up and I didn't
have any track left."
Bostrom added, "It obviously ended poorly for me. But as karma would have
it, Blake pulled kind of a shady move on Rog that in the end put him out of
a championship, so it might have been a little bit of karma there. I don't
know."
Karma or not, Bostrom was out and Hayes had half a lap to a championship,
but he knew he wasn't home free because he didn't know where Bostrom was.
Said Hayes, "I don't think there's much in this world scarier knowing that I
have about half a lap left and Ben Bostrom behind me. So if I had an
opportunity I was going to make a pass somewhere. So I ran it up the inside
in kind of tough spot to do it, down in turn eight on Roger and got myself
into second. I said, 'You know what, if I can get through the little
switchback and into 11 I think the run up to the flag I'll be pretty good,
I'm pretty strong out of there.' Man I got a heck of a run, and I even had a
good run at Blake, but once we got up on the top of the tire I didn't have
enough to get by him. I just was able to follow him across the line."
Young's margin of victory was .055 sec. Roger Lee Hayden was third at .417
sec., then came M4 Suzuki's Martin Cardenas, 2.480 secs. behind Young.
Bostrom recovered to get fifth.
"Man, what an exhale once we crossed the line and it was over and done
with," Hayes said after winning his second Superbike title. "Man, Blake made
me race my ass off for that last one. He rode like a champ today."
He added, "It was awesome. And all those guys in that whole group, I think
we were all having fun. I think all of us were smiling at the end of the
race. What a weekend. What a year, it was really a weird year. It feels
kinda weird to end so quickly. This is a good venue, I think. We have such a
great crowd here, knowledgeable and all that stuff. So it's fantastic to
finish the race here. It just seems like we're missing a few races. It seems
like it ended kinda early."
The final points tally showed Hayes with 363, Young with 358, and Tommy
Hayden with 288.
Young blamed his Saturday performance, which cost him the championship
lead—he led by five points going into the weekend—on rust. "I think for me
it's pretty difficult to sit off the motorcycle at any length of time
between races," he said. And he said he wasn't dedicated enough this season
in his training or his riding, but that he would do better next year.
"I've learned what it takes," he said. "Came up a little bit short this
year. I'll make sure I'm a little bit more better next year."
AMA Pro Superbike Results:
1. Blake Young (Suzuki)
2. Josh Hayes (Yamaha)
3. Roger Hayden (Suzuki)
4. Martin Cardenas (Suzuki)
5. Ben Bostrom (Suzuki)
6. Geoff May (EBR)
7. Taylor Knapp (EBR)
8. Chris Clark (Yamaha)
9. Jeremy Toye (BMW)
10. JD Beach (Kawasaki)