With MotoAmerica set to bring AMA Superbike racing back to Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course, August 16-18, we’re taking a closer look at past Superbike races at the iconic racetrack in Lexington, Ohio.
Early in the season, Mat Mladin had a DNF in the California Speedway round of the 2005 AMA Superbike Championship and it took him a lot of the season to make up the points lost. After Saturday’s first of two races at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course in July, Mladin was thriving, his DNF behind him, and he was sitting pretty with a 37-point lead after winning his eighth race of the season.
After Sunday’s race, however, that lead had pretty much evaporated. Again.
Mladin was chasing Ducati Austin’s Eric Bostrom and his Yoshimura Suzuki teammate Aaron Yates in race two when Yates crashed, forcing Mladin to go off-track in order to avoid him. For a second it looked like he was okay, but he lost control and crashed. He was able to restart but had to pit for repairs. At the end of it all, he’d earned a single championship point for finishing 30th.
With his closest rider in the championship, Superbike rookie Ben Spies, finishing third on his Yoshimura Suzuki, the lead that 24 hours earlier was 37 points was down to just nine points.
While Sunday’s race would be a disaster for Mladin, Saturday was completely different as the Australian was dominant, beating Spies by almost 12 seconds for his 40th career victory and Suzuki’s 75th in AMA Superbike racing. Mladin led off the start and was never headed, lapping at least a half a second faster than those in pursuit.
Behind him, it was Spies taking second, some three seconds clear of Eric Bostrom. Both of them had taken advantage of the first of two Yates crashes – in the same corner. With second place in the bag on Saturday, Yates crashed in the Carousel, handing Spies and Bostrom second and third, respectively.
Sunday’s race-two victory went to Bostrom and it was well-deserved. He led every single lap and things got easier with two of the three Yoshimura Suzukis crashing behind him. That left him to fend off American Honda’s Miguel Duhamel with the French Canadian earning his first podium of the season.
“I could have tried to keep turning the corner, but I would have crashed, and I would have crashed right into him,” Mladin said of Sunday’s incident with Yates. “I just tried to miss him. That’s racing and that’s why I keep trying to get the (points) lead.”
