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AMA Pro Superbike
AMA SBK: Educating Young
Reeling from Josh Hayes' recent string of victories, Blake Young needs to learn and improve from the humbling experience.
Blake Young (Photo: Evan Williams)
PROGRAMMING NOTE: The AMA Pro Road Racing action from Mid-Ohio will air on SPEED Saturday, July 14th and Sunday, July 15th starting at 11:00pm ET.
The 2012 AMA Pro Superbike season isn’t exactly what everyone expected. The last few seasons have been close, back-and-forth affairs where no rider held a clear upper hand, but this season Monster Energy Graves Yamaha’s Josh Hayes has put his stamp on things. Hayes has relegated Yoshimura Suzuki’s Blake Young to fighting for the scraps with Hayes’ teammate, Josh Herrin, after Young “out-won” Hayes seven times to three in 2011.
The bottom line is that Hayes and Yamaha came out swinging and Young has found himself in a funk he can’t shake. Going into Mid-Ohio, the season is only around half over but the feeling is that Hayes has this thing in the bag.
Yamaha managed to improve their bike by a considerable margin this past offseason and Hayes has continued to hone his skills, too. It’s a bad time for Young to be a bit slower, lap time wise, than he was last year.
Make no mistake, Young is a magical rider with the skill and courage to do what he wants on a bike. The problem is, this year he hasn’t figured out how to go into the phone booth and change into his Superman suit when he needs it the most. We saw it a little at the end of last season, too.
Blake actually was up in the points after the third race of the year at Sonoma. He got a win there when Hayes fell, but Young improved at his worst track and was closer to Hayes than before. Things were looking good.
The Suzuki star is really fast at Miller and Road America and thought he’d pour it on in Utah and Wisconsin, but instead he got steamrolled by Hayes both times out. The trend continued at Barber, another one of “his” tracks.
The end result is that his confidence has been left in tatters. Young admitted it. It didn’t help that, after going crash-free through the entire 2011 campaign, Blake had put it on the ground a few times trying to make a leap in practice and qualifying.
This was done all by design -- well, Josh Hayes’ design. Hayes is a nice guy but, like any good competitor, he senses a rival’s weakness. Young is excellent playing catch-up but Hayes began pressuring Young early and often, throwing down fast laps from the very first laps of practice.
Before the race, Josh proves he can run laps all day at a given pace and Young cannot. That’s a move straight out of the Mat Mladin playbook. It’s worked. It’s working.
In need of a reboot, the break after Barber came at a good time.
Going into the year, there was the expectation that this was the season for Young to win the championship. He rides for the best team in the paddock and he was a proven winner on the upswing.
Now he’s reeling and Hayes is threatening to knock all his pieces off the board. Hayes is actually more dangerous now because he has a full race’s advantage in the points and it doesn’t matter if he throws one away at this point. He can, and will, push hard.
The 2012 AMA Pro Superbike season isn’t exactly what everyone expected. The last few seasons have been close, back-and-forth affairs where no rider held a clear upper hand, but this season Monster Energy Graves Yamaha’s Josh Hayes has put his stamp on things. Hayes has relegated Yoshimura Suzuki’s Blake Young to fighting for the scraps with Hayes’ teammate, Josh Herrin, after Young “out-won” Hayes seven times to three in 2011.
The bottom line is that Hayes and Yamaha came out swinging and Young has found himself in a funk he can’t shake. Going into Mid-Ohio, the season is only around half over but the feeling is that Hayes has this thing in the bag.
Yamaha managed to improve their bike by a considerable margin this past offseason and Hayes has continued to hone his skills, too. It’s a bad time for Young to be a bit slower, lap time wise, than he was last year.
Make no mistake, Young is a magical rider with the skill and courage to do what he wants on a bike. The problem is, this year he hasn’t figured out how to go into the phone booth and change into his Superman suit when he needs it the most. We saw it a little at the end of last season, too.
Blake actually was up in the points after the third race of the year at Sonoma. He got a win there when Hayes fell, but Young improved at his worst track and was closer to Hayes than before. Things were looking good.
The Suzuki star is really fast at Miller and Road America and thought he’d pour it on in Utah and Wisconsin, but instead he got steamrolled by Hayes both times out. The trend continued at Barber, another one of “his” tracks.
The end result is that his confidence has been left in tatters. Young admitted it. It didn’t help that, after going crash-free through the entire 2011 campaign, Blake had put it on the ground a few times trying to make a leap in practice and qualifying.
This was done all by design -- well, Josh Hayes’ design. Hayes is a nice guy but, like any good competitor, he senses a rival’s weakness. Young is excellent playing catch-up but Hayes began pressuring Young early and often, throwing down fast laps from the very first laps of practice.
Before the race, Josh proves he can run laps all day at a given pace and Young cannot. That’s a move straight out of the Mat Mladin playbook. It’s worked. It’s working.
In need of a reboot, the break after Barber came at a good time.
Going into the year, there was the expectation that this was the season for Young to win the championship. He rides for the best team in the paddock and he was a proven winner on the upswing.
Now he’s reeling and Hayes is threatening to knock all his pieces off the board. Hayes is actually more dangerous now because he has a full race’s advantage in the points and it doesn’t matter if he throws one away at this point. He can, and will, push hard.
AMA SBK Miller Motorsports Park
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