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AMA Pro Superbike
AMA SBK: How Hayes Did It, Pt. 1
Evan Williams breaks down how Josh Hayes went from Superbike champion to Superbike dominator.
Monster Energy Graves Yamaha's Josh Hayes (Photo: Evan Williams)
In 2011, Josh Hayes won three races. He also took the AMA Pro AMA Superbike championship by the skin of his teeth with the aid of the bonus points. In 2012, he won 16 and once again squeaked out the title. Well, that’s if you call a 154-point margin a small one.
Hayes came up big in this past season after a few years of close Superbike racing to dominate in a record-braking way. Most of it was him but there were other factors involved, too. SPEED.com takes a look at Hayes’ magic season …
A Question Of Pace
In the era when Mat Mladin dominated AMA Pro Superbike and then the following time when Ben Spies joined him at the top, outright speed was the primary factor.
If you can turn laps a second faster than your rivals, one of two things happen: Get a good start and you’re gone. Get a bad start and you’re looking to pass a few guys and then you're gone. There’s always a straight to draft by someone after nailing that final turn onto it, or a slow corner like Turn Five at Elkhart to stuff someone on the brakes. Get a really bad start and the inevitable might take a few laps.
There was little back and forth dicing back then. It was about pace.
Fast forward to the current era. Hayes won every pole but one in 2011 but only won three races. It wasn’t solely about lap times anymore. Things were too even. The riders and bikes all had their advantages.
If you look at those races from recent seasons, some patterns emerge. If Hayes was racing Blake Young at the front, Young wanted to stick with Hayes on the start, make moves out front and slow the pace down.
Young has always had difficulty running a similar pace to Hayes in practice and qualifying, but, in previous seasons, he could often catch up enough by race time to hang. Blake is, as Hayes put it once, “very brave,” and if he’s close enough to make a move, he will.
Young has shown he’s very good late in the races and has won more than his share of the close ones. And that’s his strategy -- get it to the end where he’s in contention and pull some last-lap heroics.
He made Hayes’ life tough in 2011 doing just that. Almost all of Young's 13 career Superbike and 15 career AMA Pro wins have come this way.
When Tommy Hayden was in Superbike, he was content to let Hayes lead but he wanted to stick close. His strategy was to hang in and exploit his advantage -- saving the tire better than everyone else. He won some races, too, eight total in 2010 and 2011.
Ben Bostrom raced Hayes tough a few times and when he’s on, he’s on. Like Young, Bostrom isn’t afraid to try his best moves early in the race. There isn’t a man in the field that Hayes hates scrapping with more than Bostrom. VIR 2010 comes to mind.
In 2012, Hayden wasn’t in Superbike anymore. As for everyone else, Hayes had so much of an advantage in terms of pace that the others rarely got close enough to pull their tricks.
Hayes came up big in this past season after a few years of close Superbike racing to dominate in a record-braking way. Most of it was him but there were other factors involved, too. SPEED.com takes a look at Hayes’ magic season …
A Question Of Pace
In the era when Mat Mladin dominated AMA Pro Superbike and then the following time when Ben Spies joined him at the top, outright speed was the primary factor.
If you can turn laps a second faster than your rivals, one of two things happen: Get a good start and you’re gone. Get a bad start and you’re looking to pass a few guys and then you're gone. There’s always a straight to draft by someone after nailing that final turn onto it, or a slow corner like Turn Five at Elkhart to stuff someone on the brakes. Get a really bad start and the inevitable might take a few laps.
There was little back and forth dicing back then. It was about pace.
Fast forward to the current era. Hayes won every pole but one in 2011 but only won three races. It wasn’t solely about lap times anymore. Things were too even. The riders and bikes all had their advantages.
If you look at those races from recent seasons, some patterns emerge. If Hayes was racing Blake Young at the front, Young wanted to stick with Hayes on the start, make moves out front and slow the pace down.
Young has always had difficulty running a similar pace to Hayes in practice and qualifying, but, in previous seasons, he could often catch up enough by race time to hang. Blake is, as Hayes put it once, “very brave,” and if he’s close enough to make a move, he will.
Young has shown he’s very good late in the races and has won more than his share of the close ones. And that’s his strategy -- get it to the end where he’s in contention and pull some last-lap heroics.
He made Hayes’ life tough in 2011 doing just that. Almost all of Young's 13 career Superbike and 15 career AMA Pro wins have come this way.
When Tommy Hayden was in Superbike, he was content to let Hayes lead but he wanted to stick close. His strategy was to hang in and exploit his advantage -- saving the tire better than everyone else. He won some races, too, eight total in 2010 and 2011.
Ben Bostrom raced Hayes tough a few times and when he’s on, he’s on. Like Young, Bostrom isn’t afraid to try his best moves early in the race. There isn’t a man in the field that Hayes hates scrapping with more than Bostrom. VIR 2010 comes to mind.
In 2012, Hayden wasn’t in Superbike anymore. As for everyone else, Hayes had so much of an advantage in terms of pace that the others rarely got close enough to pull their tricks.
AMA SBK Miller Motorsports Park
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