June 5, 2008
Tooele, UT - Suzuki’s Ben Spies celebrated the end of an excellent AMA Superbike double-header weekend at Miller Motorsports Park in Tooele, Utah, on Sunday. The defending AMA Superbike Champion won Sunday’s 14-lap race, after having already won Saturday’s race and capturing pole position for the weekend. Sunday’s result marks the two-time AMA Superbike Champion’s 24th career AMA Superbike victory and increases his standings in the overall championship points standings. Teammate Mat Mladin was right behind Spies off the start but he was overtaken over the course of the race and finished in fourth position. Six-time AMA Superbike Champion Mladin remains in second place in the overall championship points standings.
Ben Spies:
“After the first few laps, I saw I had a gap on Mat. But I knew Jamie (Hacking) would be strong after doing so well yesterday. So I just tried to put in some good laps on the Suzuki GSX-R1000. I tried to keep the gap the same and just bring home the win in the end. Everything was good this weekend, and I’ve got to thank my crew for giving me such a good bike in the Suzuki. This weekend definitely helped us out in the whole championship points chase. What we’ve been doing this year has worked so far. We’ve won six in a row and we’re going for that elusive seventh. That’s a record I definitely want… so we’re going for it at Road America. We’ll see how it goes. We’re definitely going to give it a go and just try to keep winning races.”
Mat Mladin:
“I was looking forward to a good race with Ben today and my Suzuki GSX-R1000 was working fine. But I reckon yesterday’s crash banged me up a little bit more than I thought. There’s nothing seriously wrong or anything but I was pretty stiff and not 100 percent. I’m not making any excuses; we just didn’t get it done today. Now I’m just going to focus on rebuilding my confidence for next week’s race at Road America, where we won a race last year and have had some success in the past.”
AMA Superbike Top 10 Finishers:
1. Ben Spies, Rockstar Makita Suzuki Factory Racing
2. Jamie Hacking, Kawasaki
3. Neil Hodgson, Honda
4. Mat Mladin, Rockstar Makita Suzuki Factory Racing
5. Aaron Yates, Jordan Suzuki
6. Miguel Duhamel, Honda
7. Geoff May, Jordan Suzuki
8. Jason Disalvo, Yamaha
9. Eric Bostrom, Yamaha
10. Chris Peris, Suzuki
AMA Superbike Points Standings:
1. Ben Spies, Rockstar Makita Suzuki Factory Racing
2. Mat Mladin, Rockstar Makita Suzuki Factory Racing
3. Neil Hodgson, Honda
4. Jamie Hacking, Kawasaki
5. Jason DiSalvo, Yamaha
6. Eric Bostrom, Yamaha
7. Miguel Duhamel, Honda
8. Aaron Yates, Jordan Suzuki
9. Matt Lynn, Honda
10. Geoff May, Jordan Suzuki
