World Superbike
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WSBK: Spies Does it Again!
Ben Spies is now two-for-two in Superpole. The World Superbike races from Qatar will air on SPEED on Saturday at 4:00 and 5:00pm Eastern!
SPEED Staff  |  Posted March 13, 2009   Losail, Qatar
Yamaha Motor Italia's Ben Spies (Photo: Yamaha Racing)

Yamaha’s Ben Spies earned his second World Superbike pole in as many races Friday by setting a Superbike track record of 1:57.280 on the Losail Circuit in Doha, Qatar, during the final Superpole qualifying.

Spies, who also won the pole in the season opener two weeks ago in Australia , had never seen the 3.4-mile, 16-turn Losail Circuit before this weekend. The track is consider by pundits to be one of the more difficult to learn in the series because of its length and layout, yet Spies seems undaunted and is proving to be a quick study. He was fastest in Thursday’s practice sessions as well.

In Superpole Spies and his crew again decided to go with a strategy of saving two qualifying tires for the final 12-minute session. Spies even admitted to making an error during his record-breaking lap.

“The qualifying tire had so much grip it surprised me and I missed a shift coming out of a turn,” Spies said. “I probably lost a couple of tenths right there. Luckily the mistake didn’t cost me. That was on our first set of qualifiers [tires]. I came in we put on our last set of Qs. I came around to see if we were still P1 [top qualifier]. If we were I was just going to bring it in the garage and if not we were going to step it up a bit. Fortunately our time was good enough to win the pole today.”


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