Rockstar Makita Suzuki's Mat Mladin picked up his 82nd AMA Superbike victory at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca in Monterey, California, on Sunday.
The six-time AMA Superbike Champion rode flawlessly and battled with his team mate Blake Young for much of the race, which was abbreviated due to earlier crashes that drew a red flag. Young followed Mladin home in a close second place after having led multiple laps of the race on his Rockstar Makita Suzuki GSX-R1000.
Joining Mladin and Young on the podium and creating a Suzuki Superbike podium sweep was Jordan Suzuki's Aaron Yates, who finished in third place.
Unfortunately, Rockstar Makita Suzuki's Tommy Hayden suffered some bad luck at Laguna Seca: Prior to the red flag, Hayden jumped the initial start and received a stop-and-go penalty. As a result, once the race was underway, he had to pull into the pits while he was running in second place. He rejoined the fray in ninth place and finished up in eighth place.
Mat Mladin:
"It was a good race for us today. Most importantly, it's good to have the three Suzukis up here on the podium. That's what we're here to do; to try and get Suzuki up on top of the box. Today it was good to fill the podium."
Blake Young:
"I feel really good about the weekend. We got off to a really great start on the Rockstar Makita Suzuki GSX-R1000 and got to lead some laps. I think that's the most amount of laps I've led so far in a Superbike race, so I feel really good about that. The crew worked really hard for me this weekend. I really want to thank them; it's been a little rough around the shop but some guys stepped in and stepped up and filled some shoes and took care of business and got us up on the podium today. So I really want to give this one to the guys back at the shop and thank them very much for everything. It was a good race for us; we ended up second today and I'm really happy with it."
Aaron Yates:
"We got a really good start in the first get-go. I was running along, hoping to see how things were going to pan out. In the second start, I didn't get off as good as I'd wanted, but I managed to get up to turn one and get past a couple guys. I just kind of fell in the pace, and couldn't get going any better though I thought we could go faster... then I kind of got stuck in a little group. The guys up front got going and they were going fast. I think I was matching their pace but I just couldn't make any ground on Blake and Mat. I'm just happy to bring it home for the Jordan Suzuki team; they worked hard this weekend and made it on the podium."
Tommy Hayden:
"Aside from the start, which was a cluster, I thought I saw the lights flash and I took off way too early. I'm not sure what happened as it all kind of happened fast. Aside from that, I'm pretty happy with how the race went. I had some good speed and the Rockstar Makita Suzuki GSX-R1000 was working awesome today. I'm pretty disappointed to have let a good result slip away. But I guess I can take away the positive that we had a pretty good weekend and I was fast enough to run up front, but it just didn't work out."
AMA Superbike Top 10 Finishers:
1. Mat Mladin (Rockstar Makita Suzuki)
2. Blake Young (Rockstar Makita Suzuki)
3. Aaron Yates (Jordan Suzuki)
4. Josh Hayes (Yamaha)
5. Ben Bostrom (Yamaha)
6. Neil Hodgson (Honda)
7. Jake Holden (Honda)
8. Tommy Hayden (Rockstar Makita Suzuki)
9. Geoff May (National Guard Jordan Suzuki)
10. Larry Pegram (Ducati)
Suzuki.