Rockstar Makita Yoshimura Suzuki's Ben Spies (Photo: Brian J Nelson)
Spies Stuns with Sixth Straight Pole
Following post-US Grand Prix appendix surgery, there was some concern that reigning AMA Superbike champ Ben Spies might not even be able to ride this weekend at Mid-Ohio. While he quickly made it clear he would, he seemed to be approaching the weekend in damage control mode, hoping to pick up whatever points he could in order to hold onto his hard-earned points lead.
On Friday the Rockstar Makita Yoshimura Suzuki star opened the weekend by finishing the first practice an uncharacteristic 10th fastest (with anything below second qualifying as 'uncharacteristic'). In Friday's qualifying session jumped up to a provisional front row position, running fourth quick but still over a second off teammate Mat Mladin.
But on Saturday, Spies impressed mightily by extending his run of consecutive poles to six, establishing a new outright motorcycle track record at Mid-Ohio while storming to the pole with a time of 1:23.639, nearly a second-and-a-half faster than his Friday best.
Spies nonchalantly said, "It was good. We just went out on yesterday's tires and set-up and just worked on trying to get going. We got going okay and then just threw a softer race tire on at the end and it took me a couple laps to get going and we did in the end. We got the pole so I'm hoping for a good race today."
Asked about his condition, he remarked, "Everyday it's getting a whole lot better."
He then sarcastically added, "The whole appendix thing, I just didn't want to go on a diet and I wanted to lose some weight and get a whole bunch of attention and publicity for it so that's pretty much the only reason for it."
On Friday Spies said that winning would be impossible this weekend. He's since upgraded his race prospects.
