Superbiker Spies Is Up to First Challenge

Mat Mladin is by no means ready to hand over the reins as the world’s top superbike rider, but Ben Spies certainly seems ready to grab them.

Spies, 21, easily passed his Australian teammate halfway through the first race of the AMA Suzuki Superbike Challenge on Saturday and pulled away for a seven-second win at California Speedway. The second race is today.

It was Spies’ third consecutive victory over Mladin, a six-time superbike champion, and the fourth of his career. And it was the first time since 2002 that Mladin, 34, had gone three consecutive races without a win.

“I could tell he [Mladin] was having some problems,” said Spies, a Longview, Texas, rider who is part of the Yoshimura Suzuki team with Mladin. So much so that “I just chilled out the last eight laps” of the 28-lap race, Spies said.

Mladin said “we probably chose the wrong tire” for the race, one that was too soft and slowed his speed. “Ben was just a bit too quick today,” he said. “We’ll come back tomorrow and give it another shot.”

Jake Zemke of American Honda finished third and Aaron Yates of Yoshimura Suzuki was fourth.

Spies started on the pole, with Mladin second, after posting a Fontana qualifying record speed of 99.832 mph earlier in the day, surpassing the record of 99.311 he set Friday in the first round of qualifying.

The superbikes’ 2.3-mile, 21-lap course is laid out mostly in the infield portion of the two-mile California Speedway oval. But they also use the track’s front straightaway to reach speeds of 165 mph and higher.

The riders wear protective suits that include an inverted cone-shaped pad that’s sewn inside the suit between their shoulder blades, giving them an aerodynamic boost by helping the air move faster over their backs.

They also wear hard plastic kneepads, about an inch thick, for protection when they lean nearly 90 degrees to their sides while driving through corners.

Among those chasing Spies and Mladin was the Suzuki team owned by basketball great Michael Jordan.

“Our guys are riding good,” Jordan said of Jason Pridmore of Ventura, Steve Rapp of Santa Clarita and Jake Holden of Eatonville, Wash. “We’ve worked on a lot of things, such as different setups, and our guys have responded each and every race.”

Pridmore finished ninth in Saturday’s race, Holden 11th and Rapp 12th.

Jordan, whose interest in motorcycles began when he had a minibike as a kid, formed his superbike team last year and said “I’m still learning the business. But we’re going to keep getting better.”

In the supersport class -- one of the AMA’s support series -- points leader Roger Lee Hayden did not practice or qualify as he had hoped, six days after breaking his right leg in a racing crash in Alabama.

He also struggled to find a racing boot that would fit over the light cast protecting his leg, which required surgery after the accident, he said.

Hayden could start today’s race with a provisional qualifying spot, earned from his points last year. But he would have to start at the rear of the field.

In the AMA’s Formula Xtreme race Saturday, Eric Bostrom outpaced fellow Yamaha rider and pole-sitter Jason Disalvo to win by eight seconds.