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AMA Pro Superbike
AMA SBK: Young And Talented, But Is It Enough?
Blake Young's talent was on display in his remarkable win from the back at Road Atlanta, but he's going to need to rediscover that same magic in '13 to challenge Josh Hayes.
Blake Young (Photo: Evan Williams)
So what is the AMA Pro Superbike race of the year?
A 'race of the year' should be a cracking good contest and also be a turning point in the season. It should mean something and tell us something about the protagonists who contested it.
The race of 2012 was the Saturday contest at Road Atlanta. It was just the third of the year. Blake Young of Yoshimura Suzuki and Josh Hayes of Monster Energy Graves Yamaha had split wins at Daytona. After the two went head-to-head in 2011 with the championship undecided until the final corner of the New Jersey finale, it was hard to say which man had the upper hand at that point. No one knew Hayes was about to go onto a record-breaking season and win the title by over 150 points. We thought it was close.
There was even a line of thinking that maybe Young, in name and in nature, might continue to improve and outpace his rival in 2012. We knew what he could do when he got to the last lap. All he needed to do was improve at some of his weaker tracks. One race would have made the difference in 2011 and now Young did not have former teammate Tommy Hayden taking away points or attention.
That’s not what happened. At all.
In Georgia, the two men were battling for the lead like they had done so many times before when they crested the hill just past the halfway point of lap 14. What looked to be shaping into another bare-knuckles, late-race brawl seemingly evaporated when the two riders touched and Young went down. The red flag came out.
During the stoppage, the two sides vocalized their opinions on the crash. The Suzuki camp thought Hayes bumped Young from behind and that Hayes should be ruled the cause of the red flag. The opinion at Yamaha was Young took a different line every time, making it impossible to avoid contact, and wasn’t in control enough considering it was a multi-rider battle.
Young and others were apoplectic when AMA Pro told them he’d be gridded at the back for the restart. Aside from being in obvious pain following his crash, the team had to scramble to repair his machine for the last run.
A 'race of the year' should be a cracking good contest and also be a turning point in the season. It should mean something and tell us something about the protagonists who contested it.
The race of 2012 was the Saturday contest at Road Atlanta. It was just the third of the year. Blake Young of Yoshimura Suzuki and Josh Hayes of Monster Energy Graves Yamaha had split wins at Daytona. After the two went head-to-head in 2011 with the championship undecided until the final corner of the New Jersey finale, it was hard to say which man had the upper hand at that point. No one knew Hayes was about to go onto a record-breaking season and win the title by over 150 points. We thought it was close.
There was even a line of thinking that maybe Young, in name and in nature, might continue to improve and outpace his rival in 2012. We knew what he could do when he got to the last lap. All he needed to do was improve at some of his weaker tracks. One race would have made the difference in 2011 and now Young did not have former teammate Tommy Hayden taking away points or attention.
That’s not what happened. At all.
In Georgia, the two men were battling for the lead like they had done so many times before when they crested the hill just past the halfway point of lap 14. What looked to be shaping into another bare-knuckles, late-race brawl seemingly evaporated when the two riders touched and Young went down. The red flag came out.
During the stoppage, the two sides vocalized their opinions on the crash. The Suzuki camp thought Hayes bumped Young from behind and that Hayes should be ruled the cause of the red flag. The opinion at Yamaha was Young took a different line every time, making it impossible to avoid contact, and wasn’t in control enough considering it was a multi-rider battle.
Young and others were apoplectic when AMA Pro told them he’d be gridded at the back for the restart. Aside from being in obvious pain following his crash, the team had to scramble to repair his machine for the last run.
AMA SBK Miller Motorsports Park
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