However, the Kentuckian got a bit over-anxious on Friday and pushed too hard on the race's opening lap while running third in hopes of locking on to the champ before he could disappear. Instead, Hayden fell. And, on Saturday, Hayden notched up a solid finish in fourth -- narrowly beating new teammate Danny Eslick to the line for the spot -- but finished more than 17 seconds behind Cardenas.

Hayden said, "Danny and I had a pretty good race and we struggled with the same things. Fourth isn't where we want to be and we need to be a little stronger for the next one. But we got out of here with some points and we'll move on. We're a lot better than fourth; we had the speed in practice and qualifying, and we just had some bad luck in the races. Hopefully, we got all of that out of the way, and I can't wait for Road America."

Eslick, meanwhile, is ranked fourth in the points behind Herrin, Cardenas, and Pegram, with a pair of top fives (he finished fourth on Friday) in what was a promising start to his career as the pilot of the #23 Jordan Suzuki machine.

"The Jordan Suzuki GSX-R1000 was running great at Daytona," Eslick said. "I felt like I was knocking some of the cobwebs off from the winter. In the second race, Rog and I ran around by ourselves for the last half of the race, but that's good in its own way because we're learning stuff riding with each other. Hopefully, at Road America, we'll come out and fight for a win."

Cardenas' stunning success was backed up by the best-ever Superbike weekend of Yoshimura Suzuki teammate Chris Clark's career. Clark came home in fifth on Friday and finished in sixth the following day.

He said, "It was good to get the first race out of the way; I was able to get the best finish of my career with fifth, so I was really happy about that. It was a little tough the first few laps because I didn't get a good start but I was able to get around some guys on the Yoshimura Suzuki GSX-R1000. I made a few little mistakes in the middle of the race but overall I was happy. In the second race, I finished sixth, and we wound up fifth in the points, so this was the best race weekend I've ever had. Now I'm just excited to get to Road America."

Another rider who enjoyed a standout Daytona was Robertino Pietri. The son of former AMA Superbike star Roberto Pietri piloted his Team Moto Venezuela PC 4x4 Store Kawasaki ZX-10R to sixth- and seventh-place finishes.

The Venezuelan said, "We are extremely pleased with the results this weekend. This was my best finish at Daytona in the SuperBike class. To be able to run in the top 10 and be able to mix it up with the big factory bikes says a lot. My crew did an awesome job, and I am extremely proud of the entire team."

Despite the fact that some serious horsepower upgrades were found for the developing KTM/HMC RC8R during the off-season but they were not quite ready for Daytona, Chris Fillmore still managed to notch up a pair of top-ten results at the high-speed circuit.

"(Saturday) went really well for us," stated Fillmore after improving from a Friday tenth to eighth on Saturday. "(Friday) night, we were able to make a few minor changes to our setup that helped a lot for today's race. I felt more comfortable on the bike and was happy with my result."

Team Hero's Geoff May guided the EBR 1190RS to seventh on Friday while Team M4 Broaster Chicken Racing's Chris Ulrich bounced back from a difficult Friday to take ninth aboard his Honda CBR1000RR on Saturday.

In all, six different makes claimed top-ten finishes during the Daytona weekend in the premier AMA Pro National Guard SuperBike class.

"It went a lot better (Saturday)," Ulrich said. "(Friday), what bit us was a slight change in the engine management -- the downshift parameter -- which made the bike inconsistent during braking. It showed by running off three times. It was a challenging race, for sure. But (Saturday) started off good by running P4 in the morning warm-up, and we discovered a couple of things with the chassis of the CBR1000RR that don't necessarily correlate to the bike we used to ride. We had to soften the back of the bike up a little bit to get it to transfer some weight, and it improved grip a lot. We also fixed the electronics, and it was good.

"We made a slight mistake midway through the race but for the most part, every lap was faster than my qualifying time, and I also turned my fastest ever lap around Daytona today. It bodes well for the future. We're just scratching the surface and it's got a lot of potential. I'm really confident in the M4 crew to go forward with this thing."