Monster Energy Graves Yamaha's Josh Hayes (Photo: Evan Williams)

Young was fortunate but took full advantage and won by, for him, a large margin -- 3.467 seconds. “I’m glad to get a win out of here,” said Young afterward. “It’s been a ‘struggle track ‘ for me. I obviously did better than I expected. I know Josh is going to be fighting for every point like he is already. This was one of his better tracks and hopefully I will be better able to contend for the pole point and lead some more laps (in future races.)”

Young said he didn’t want to win by having Hayes crash. “That’s just racing and there is a lot of racing left. It can happen to anyone at any given time. This weekend was a struggle for me. I felt myself getting away from some of the basics. I needed to stop thinking about ‘what if he wins?’ Last year, I was maybe 21 seconds behind Josh in the first race. Sitting back at the hotel Friday night, I tried to make a realistic goal to cut that gap in half on Saturday and start getting up to him. That’s the only way I can beat him here. I can’t just go out and race him. Obviously, his bike works good here and he’s found something here or whatever it may be. I needed to go back to basics and start chipping away. That’s what we did. The goal today was to do some 1:36 laps, try to dice with him if I got off to a clean start, maybe by the end of the race cut the gap from ten seconds to five.”

Instead of having a big lead, Hayes now trails by four. “Would I prefer a 19 point lead? Sure. I was still fast after crashing the motorcycle, though,” said Hayes, who was positive despite the fall and a missed victory. “For the championship, it’s probably a better story. Me having a 19-point lead isn’t a good story but four points between us is. Blake won at Miller and one of the races at Road America. I was really strong at those last year and I feel like he stole them from me. I’m coming back with a new weapon. We made some significant improvements since Miller last year. I’m glad to have two weeks off and get all my stuff back together. I’m already looking forward to racing again at Miller.”

Young said, “It should be interesting from here on out.”

Agreed.