Graves Motorsports Yamaha's Ricky Parker (Photo: Brian J Nelson) ยป More Photos
PROGRAMMING NOTE: The AMA Pro Road Racing action from Laguna Seca can be seen Sunday, July 5 at 9:00pm PT (late Sunday/early Monday, July 6 at Midnight ET).
Ricky Parker picked up his second career AMA Pro SuperSport presented by Shoei victory, Mat Mladin kept his 2009 pole-winning record intact in AMA Pro National Guard American Superbike presented by Parts Unlimited qualifying and Martin Cardenas earned his first career AMA Pro Daytona SportBike presented by AMSOIL pole position in qualifying at the Red Bull U.S. Grand Prix at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca.
Riding the No. 96 Graves Motorsports Yamaha YZF-R6, Parker qualified on the pole position earlier in the day, pulled out into the lead on the race's standing start and was never challenged on his way to the SuperSport victory by 12.723 seconds over Russ Wikle. Parker earned his first SuperSport win in May at Infineon Raceway -- his first start in the series -- and finished second last time out at Road America.
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Those performances coupled with today's victory move him to the top of the SuperSport West championship standings, despite the fact that he missed the first two rounds of the season. Parker now leads Tyler Odom -- who finished 15th and earned no points after a first-lap crash today -- by 14 points, 88-74, after five of seven races.
"It's never easy," Parker said. "I had a lot of pressure on the start. I was worrying about these two guys (Wikle and Bryce Prince) catching back up with me and passing me during the race. I pulled a fast gap at the beginning and I think Russell did a bunch of mistakes at the beginning and lost the gap. When you lose eye contact, it's hard to keep up with the guy in front of you, but he's an awesome rider. I know he could have been there if he hadn't done those few mistakes in the beginning. The Yamaha was working awesome today. The Graves guys did an awesome job this weekend, and the Arai helmets worked awesome like always."
