National Guard Jordan Suzuki's Roger Hayden (Photo: Evan Williams)

Hayden made a big jump, improving from eight provisionally to second today, but said it was more a result of effort than any sizable leap in competitiveness with the set-up of his National Guard Jordan Suzuki GSX-R1000.

"I closed my eyes one lap, basically -- unplugged the brain," Hayden admitted. "We haven't found some magical setting. We rode a little bit harder at the end of qualifying. At this place it's so important to start up front because it is really hard to pass. A lot of guys will be trying to be a hero on the first lap and I don't want to get caught up in it. We have improved the bike a little bit, we just haven't found enough yet."

Hayden was joined in making the step from the provisional second row to the first by his teammate Ben Bostrom, on the purple and white Jordan Suzuki GSX-R. The mercurial Bostrom has been known to show strongly at the circuit that's located near his boyhood home and remains one to keep an eye on despite his disastrous start to the '12 season.

Meanwhile, Team Amsoil/Hero EBR's Geoff May continued to demonstrate the steadily improving form of the EBR 1190RS by locking down a spot on the front row. May's effort was backed up by the fifth-place qualifying showing of teammate Danny Eslick. The impressive combined QP performance comes on the heels of their Friday 2-3 and May's head-turning weekend at Road Atlanta.

May said, "It's been a long steady progress for about two years now, starting with the 1125, which has a similar chassis to this bike. We've been chipping away at it, below the radar I guess. Nobody's really been paying us any attention. I was able to get Mike Fitzgerald as a crew chief this year, and we had worked together back in the M4 days. We have a really good rapport.

"It's really down to the crew; Hero came onboard and enabled us to hire a bunch of top-notch mechanics, and crew chiefs, and suspensions guys. And bringing on Danny (Eslick) has allowed us to do things twice as fast as far as R&D and bringing the bike up to snuff.

"I think what you're seeing is Danny and I getting more and more comfortable. We can push harder and harder without the bike throwing us on the ground. It's a good bike -- it does some things really, really well -- better than any bike I've ever ridden, and it does some things worse than any bike I've ever ridden. We're trying to minimize the bad parts and maximum the good aspects of the chassis."

Whether or not Hayes is destined to run away at front, Young is poised to pull another rabbit out of his hat, or another rider will step up to meet the challenge will be determined just hours from now.

SPEED.com Motorcycle Racing Editor Chris Martin saw Eddie Lawson win aboard a Kawasaki the first time he attended an AMA Superbike race and witnessed Ben Bostrom win a World Superbike race aboard a V&H Ducati the first time he worked one. He has written about AMA SBK, WSBK, and MotoGP for SPEED.com since 2003. Chris is now on Twitter.