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Rockstar Makita Yoshimura Suzuki's Ben Spies and crew chief Tom Houseworth (Photo: Brian J Nelson) ยป More Photos
Rockstar Makita Yoshimura Suzuki's Ben Spies broke free of a virtual deadlock for provisional pole with teammate Mat Mladin at Infineon Raceway by lopping over a half second off his best time late in Friday's AMA Superbike qualifying session to secure the provisional pole.
Spies, who is currently tied with Freddie Spencer for third all-time with 17 career AMA Superbike poles, will look to claim his second qualifying triumph of the season tomorrow morning in preparation of the weekend's twin 100k finals.
Low-key as ever, Spies sounded fairly confident in the way his race package is shaping up at a track his rival has won on eight times in the past.
"The last two laps we did '35.8s, both of them," Spies explained. "We just stayed on the same tires the whole way. I guess the time that would have put it on pole even if we hadn't have gone faster came at the end of the original set of tires, which was really good.
"So the bike is really good. We're working more on race set-up. It was a little hot out so track record wasn't going to happen. I think there's a little more in it. We're still searching
Speaking of the impact the blisteringly hot temperatures had on the track, Spies was asked which areas of the track are affect the most. He said, "It's kind of hard to say. The whole track is pretty greasy. Definitely the Carousel, it seems like coming out of there you can light it up pretty good.
"One spot I've always had problems in -- up in Turn 3 -- it seems to have okay grip. I don't know if it's bike set-up or what it is, but the bike seems to be working pretty good. Actually most of my problem spots here seem to be okay this year. We're struggling in a couple little areas but they're areas where as long as we can make a couple little minor changes to the bike to make it better it should fix that. It should be good. We've got another session before tomorrow. We need to have a good one and then we need to have a good race."
Saturday's qualifying session will take place starting at 9:30am local time, when it should be cooler and the times quicker, followed by Saturday's 28-lap race at 3:30pm.
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