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AMA Pro Superbike
AMA SBK: Hayes In Charge At NOLA
Josh Hayes put on a show for the home crowd by storming to provisional pole for this weekend's AMA Pro Superbike doubleheader at NOLA Motorsports Park.
Monster Energy Graves Yamaha's Josh Hayes (Photo: Evan Williams)
PROGRAMMING NOTE: This weekend's AMA Pro Road Racing season finale from NOLA Motorsports Park will air on SPEED on Sunday, October 7th at 2:00pm ET and 3:00pm ET and at Midnight ET.
With the 2012 AMA Pro National Guard SuperBike title already captured, Josh Hayes is on a mission to end his epic GEICO Motorcycle AMA Pro Road Racing season with an exclamation point this weekend at NOLA Motorsports Park.
Competing just over an hour's drive away from his hometown of Gulfport, Mississippi, Hayes is motivated to deliver for his large contingent of fans and did so in impressive fashion on Friday at the Triumph Big Kahuna New Orleans presented by Dunlop Tire and LeoVince.
Hayes dominated the opening qualifying session, snatching up provisional pole by nearly a full second with a best time of 1:39.943 around the brand-new 16-turn, 2.75-mile facility.
The Monster Energy Graves Yamaha rider has already assembled what may go down as the greatest season in series' history, and another conquering weekend would only cement that bid. A tenth pole would tie him with Mat Mladin (2005) for the most ever in a single SuperBike season.
However, Friday was not without its challenges. The new track proved exceptionally hard on tires and the champ also suffered a crash during the day.
Hayes spent much of the day just riding around on worn, hard tires, preparing for the possibility of racing in those conditions.
"What's the most adjustable thing on the motorcycle? The wingnut behind the handlebars," Hayes explained. "Give me time to go out and ride the thing around the racetrack and see everything and wait until tomorrow when there's a little more rubber on the track before we even start worrying about if the softer tires going to be able to do race distance. But right now I'm pretty fast on the hard stuff so I'm feeling pretty good about it."
If Hayes can put together one more double-win weekend, he'll up his career win total to 33, moving ahead of Miguel of DuHamel for second place all time, not to mention increasing his single-season wins record to 16.
Not content to rest on that success, Hayes is already eying a way to not only continue that unstoppable form in 2013, but up his game even further.
He said, "I'm excited about next year. I think everything is going to be the same on my end -- it's looking that way. I have a good thing going; I hate that we're going to take a bunch of time off. I had that really good run and then we took that time off to New Jersey and it kind of felt hard to come back and get going again. This one is going to be a long time. I sure like riding these things and I wish we had more days in the offseason that we got to ride them on tracks that we race at. It's been an incredible year. Probably the first time all year, within the last week and a half, I said, 'Man, I'm tired.' I didn't really notice. I've been pretty focused and I trained really hard this year. I did quite a bit more than in years past and took everything up a notch. I'm looking forward to getting right back to it and seeing if I can do the same thing again. I took my training up one notch -- I know there's another notch there. We're going to try to do it just a little bit better."
The biggest threat to Hayes this weekend is the same man who ended his pole and win streaks last time out: Roger Hayden.
The National Guard Jordan Suzuki ace scored his first-career AMA Pro National Guard SuperBike pole and race victory last time out at Homestead-Miami Speedway and will be eager to immediately add to that tally this weekend.
The Kentuckian was second best on Friday, lapping at 1:40.941 to narrowly displace Yoshimura Suzuki's Blake Young (1:40.962) for the position late.
Young earned three early-season victories and will also be looking to end his season on a high note.
The final spot on the provisional front row went to Team Hero EBR's Danny Eslick, who claimed a stirring runner-up result at Homestead-Miami Speedway.
The provisional second row is headed by Jordan Suzuki's Ben Bostrom, with Foremost Insurance Pegram Racing's Larry Pegram (BMW), Team Venezuela's Robertino Pietri, and Team Amsoil/Hero EBR's Geoff May.
KTM/HMC Racing's Chris Fillmore, Riders Discount K&L Supply's Taylor Knapp, Kneedraggers.com/Motul/Fly Racing's David Anthony, and EvanSteelPerformance.com BMW's Aaron Yates round out a talented Row 3 heading into Saturday's final qualifying session.
With the 2012 AMA Pro National Guard SuperBike title already captured, Josh Hayes is on a mission to end his epic GEICO Motorcycle AMA Pro Road Racing season with an exclamation point this weekend at NOLA Motorsports Park.
Competing just over an hour's drive away from his hometown of Gulfport, Mississippi, Hayes is motivated to deliver for his large contingent of fans and did so in impressive fashion on Friday at the Triumph Big Kahuna New Orleans presented by Dunlop Tire and LeoVince.
Hayes dominated the opening qualifying session, snatching up provisional pole by nearly a full second with a best time of 1:39.943 around the brand-new 16-turn, 2.75-mile facility.
The Monster Energy Graves Yamaha rider has already assembled what may go down as the greatest season in series' history, and another conquering weekend would only cement that bid. A tenth pole would tie him with Mat Mladin (2005) for the most ever in a single SuperBike season.
However, Friday was not without its challenges. The new track proved exceptionally hard on tires and the champ also suffered a crash during the day.
Hayes spent much of the day just riding around on worn, hard tires, preparing for the possibility of racing in those conditions.
"What's the most adjustable thing on the motorcycle? The wingnut behind the handlebars," Hayes explained. "Give me time to go out and ride the thing around the racetrack and see everything and wait until tomorrow when there's a little more rubber on the track before we even start worrying about if the softer tires going to be able to do race distance. But right now I'm pretty fast on the hard stuff so I'm feeling pretty good about it."
If Hayes can put together one more double-win weekend, he'll up his career win total to 33, moving ahead of Miguel of DuHamel for second place all time, not to mention increasing his single-season wins record to 16.
Not content to rest on that success, Hayes is already eying a way to not only continue that unstoppable form in 2013, but up his game even further.
He said, "I'm excited about next year. I think everything is going to be the same on my end -- it's looking that way. I have a good thing going; I hate that we're going to take a bunch of time off. I had that really good run and then we took that time off to New Jersey and it kind of felt hard to come back and get going again. This one is going to be a long time. I sure like riding these things and I wish we had more days in the offseason that we got to ride them on tracks that we race at. It's been an incredible year. Probably the first time all year, within the last week and a half, I said, 'Man, I'm tired.' I didn't really notice. I've been pretty focused and I trained really hard this year. I did quite a bit more than in years past and took everything up a notch. I'm looking forward to getting right back to it and seeing if I can do the same thing again. I took my training up one notch -- I know there's another notch there. We're going to try to do it just a little bit better."
The biggest threat to Hayes this weekend is the same man who ended his pole and win streaks last time out: Roger Hayden.
The National Guard Jordan Suzuki ace scored his first-career AMA Pro National Guard SuperBike pole and race victory last time out at Homestead-Miami Speedway and will be eager to immediately add to that tally this weekend.
The Kentuckian was second best on Friday, lapping at 1:40.941 to narrowly displace Yoshimura Suzuki's Blake Young (1:40.962) for the position late.
Young earned three early-season victories and will also be looking to end his season on a high note.
The final spot on the provisional front row went to Team Hero EBR's Danny Eslick, who claimed a stirring runner-up result at Homestead-Miami Speedway.
The provisional second row is headed by Jordan Suzuki's Ben Bostrom, with Foremost Insurance Pegram Racing's Larry Pegram (BMW), Team Venezuela's Robertino Pietri, and Team Amsoil/Hero EBR's Geoff May.
KTM/HMC Racing's Chris Fillmore, Riders Discount K&L Supply's Taylor Knapp, Kneedraggers.com/Motul/Fly Racing's David Anthony, and EvanSteelPerformance.com BMW's Aaron Yates round out a talented Row 3 heading into Saturday's final qualifying session.
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