ROCKSTAR MAKITA SUZUKI CAPTURES SECOND SUPERBIKE DOUBLE-PODIUM AT INFINEON

Rockstar Makita Suzuki’s Spies & Mladin again first & second!

Round 7 – AMA Superbike Series
Sonoma, California
Infineon Raceway
May 16 - 18, 2008

Rockstar Makita Suzuki Factory Racing continues to hold sway in AMA Superbike racing, as defending AMA Superbike Champion Ben Spies and six-time AMA Superbike Champion Mat Mladin again finished first and second in the second AMA Superbike race of the weekend at Infineon Raceway on Sunday afternoon. Two-time AMA Superbike Champion Spies started from pole position and led all
28 laps of the race to take the win. This victory is Spies’ fourth consecutive AMA Superbike win of the season and his 22nd such career victory. Teammate Mladin was right on Spies’ tail for the entire race and brought home second place. With this result, Mladin maintains his lead in the AMA Superbike championship points standings. Rockstar Makita Suzuki teammate Tommy Hayden is recovering from injuries sustained at a recent round of AMA Superbike and did not race this
weekend.

Ben Spies:
“Today’s race was a whole lot tougher than yesterday. Mat had a bit of a go and got the gap down really low. I was just trying to be consistent and go fast, because I knew he was coming but I didn’t know if he was going to keep on coming. I was just riding my Rockstar Makita Suzuki GSX-R1000 as fast as I could, and I got a little break with some lappers with about 12 laps to go. It was a tough race, we were sliding around quite a bit. I mean, it was fun but it was definitely very difficult. This was a good weekend overall -- we did everything we could do. We just had a maxed-out weekend and that’s what we needed. Now we’re going into Utah, and we’ve had some decent success there. Considering the hole we’ve dug for ourselves with the championship, things are going well, but we’ve got to keep it up for the next several weekends.”

Mat Mladin:
“We had the same results today, but the pace was a bit quicker. We got a few things sorted on the Rockstar Makita Suzuki GSX-R1000 and I felt more comfortable on the motorbike. But I still couldn’t get on the back of Ben. We certainly made some improvements today, which made things better for me today. And we look forward to getting to the next race and building up some confidence. I’ve had five crashes this year and that’s not like me to crash so much at the beginning of the season, so I want to build some confidence back up. So we’ll move on and try to challenge Ben for some race wins because he won pretty handily this weekend.”

AMA Superbike Top 10 Finishers:
1. Ben Spies, Rockstar Makita Suzuki Factory Racing
2. Mat Mladin, Rockstar Makita Suzuki Factory Racing
3. Jamie Hacking, Kawasaki
4. Aaron Yates, Jordan Suzuki
5. Neil Hodgson, Honda
6. Eric Bostrom, Yamaha
7. Miguel Duhamel, Honda
8. Geoff May, Jordan Suzuki
9. Chris Peris, Suzuki
10. Ryan Elleby, Suzuki

AMA Superbike Points Standings:
1. Mat Mladin, Rockstar Makita Suzuki Factory Racing
2. Ben Spies, Rockstar Makita Suzuki Factory Racing
3. Neil Hodgson, Honda
4. Jason Disalvo, Yamaha
5. Jamie Hacking, Kawasaki
6. Eric Bostrom, Yamaha
7. Tommy Hayden, Rockstar Makita Suzuki Factory Racing
8. Miguel Duhamel, Honda
9. Aaron Yates, Jordan Suzuki
10. Matt Lynn, Honda