Jordan Suzuki's Aaron Yates (Photo: Brian J Nelson) » More Photos

Yates Over Young in Superstock Shootout

Jordan Suzuki's Aaron Yates scored his third AMA Superstock victory of the season today at Mid-Ohio, claiming his first win of the year since opening the 2008 campaign two for two.

The hard-charging Georgian also got a measure of revenge for the championship's most recent round, when he was tracked down and passed at the last possible moment by Team M4 EMGO Suzuki's rising star, Blake Young.

The two escaped at the front on Sunday, with Yates leading from pole over the race's opening 13 laps. However, the Wisconsin native struck at the start of lap 14, ducking up the inside to steal the lead in Turn 1.

Yates came back by a lap later on the brakes in Turn 6, but faced intense pressure from Young who looked for a way to storm past over the race's final two laps. He never found an opportunity as the experienced pilot cut a cleaner path through traffic while Young accepted his runner-up finish 0.931 seconds shy of a second straight victory.

Corona Honda's Jake Holden sat behind Yates' teammate, Geoff May, for the race's first 11 laps before finally working past and quickly opening up a gap to claim the final spot on the podium.

Afterwards race winner Yates said, "The race was about perfect. I got an awesome start; I left the line quick and was able to keep the front end down on the bike. I just got out there and tried to put in some good clean laps. It's not much of my style to lead from the beginning and try to lead the whole race, but these guys -- Jake, Blake, and my teammate -- they've been getting faster and faster and they're getting hard to run with, so I knew I had to take advantage of any clear track that I got and just try to put in some good laps and go hard. And that's what we were able to do.

"Blake hung onto me there... I wasn't sure who it was. I was trying not to focus on all that too much and just focus on the track. I took a look back and saw it was him and we had a little gap. He came by me on the straightaway a few times but I was able to keep it in front of him. He finally came by me and I could tell he was a little slower in a lot of the other places than I was in getting around. I knew I needed to get back by him because I saw Jake was back there and I didn't want to slow down and let him make it a race like that."

Team ESP's Chris Peris picked up fifth some 13 seconds behind May, outlasting Pirelli-backed Scott Jensen for the position.

KWS Motorsports' Ben Thompson finished seventh, ahead of CEV regular Dennis Noyes, who narrowly topped Robertino Pietri, David Anthony, and Ryan Elleby.