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Rockstar Makita Yoshimura Suzuki's Ben Spies (Photo: Brian J Nelson) ยป More Photos
Sensory Overload vs. Sensory Deprivation
While Ben Spies has held the upper hand over his Rockstar Makita Yoshimura Suzuki teammate/rival Mat Mladin in recent trips to Laguna Seca, the two appear to be very evenly matched heading into today's 28-lap showdown.
The two are both dealing with less-than-ideal circumstances in terms of their preparation for the race.
Spies is facing a monumental challenge with much of his focus directed on his high-profile GP ride and being forced to continually transition back and forth from two extremely different motorcycles, making it a bit more difficult to find a groove on either. Jamie Hacking, who is navigating the same obstacle, actually crashed his Superbike on Friday after getting caught out by the contrasting throttle response of his ZX-10R compared with the ZX-RR Grand Prix machine.
Meanwhile, Mladin has precious little track time this weekend with the combined GP/AMA schedule leaving just two shortened practice sessions and an abbreviated qualifying period prior to the Superbike contest.
Asked about difficulty that comes with riding both machines, Spies explained, "It's just two different motorcycles. It's obviously kind of showed in the practice sessions -- it takes a little bit to get back up into it and get back up to speed. It is what it is and we've got to do it and make the best of it. We got going pretty good this morning on the Superbike and more back to normal as in race pace and me and him both stepped it up from last year on the fast laps. But yeah, they're just different motorcycles and that's all there is to it."
Spies answered back with, "I missed four days of testing here too so that didn't help."
Commenting about qualifying, the Aussie said, "It was a pretty good session. Obviously, we're limited for track time, so I was just trying to get up to speed. We're looking forward to the race; we've got something that's working pretty well so I'm looking forward to 4:00."
Third qualifier Eric Bostrom looks more confident that he's been in quite some time on the Yamaha USA YZF-R1. "It's obviously a pretty condensed weekend for us and there was a lot of sitting around yesterday. So it's nice to actually get out on the racetrack this morning and get on schedule.
"The track had fantastic grip and that was my fastest-ever lap around Laguna Seca. I was real happy to see '23 come across the cockpit. We've got the bike working pretty decent so I'm looking forward to a really fun race this afternoon."
Meanwhile, Tommy Hayden made an impressive qualifying return, clocking the fourth best time of the session to achieve his front-row goal heading into his race return this afternoon.
"It feels good to be back and I'm definitely enjoying myself out there," Hayden said. "The bike is working pretty well. I was out there and put some pretty decent laps together and was able to do a couple quick ones. My goal was to get on the front row because it's pretty tough to pass here. I thought that would make the race a little bit easier so we're definitely glad to be up here."
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