From a press release issued by Mat Mladin Motorsports:

MLADIN THIRD FASTEST IN AMERICAN SUPERBIKE QUALIFYING AT PIKES PEAK

Fountain, Colorado, USA – Four-times American
Superbike champion Mat Mladin, will start from the front row of the grid for this weekend’s eighth round of the American AMA Chevrolet Superbike Championship after recording the third fastest time during today’s qualifying session at Pikes Peak International Raceway in Colorado.

After holding down the second fastest time for much of the session, Mladin’s best time of 54.413-seconds recorded in the closing minutes of the session left the Yoshimura Suzuki Australian with the third fastest time and
was headed on the time sheet by championship rivals Jake Zemke and Miguel DuHamel.

Zemke led almost the entirety of the 30-minute session and earned his first pole position of the season with a time of 53.774-seconds. Fellow
Honda rider DuHamel moved past Mladin in the closing minutes of the session to grab second with a 54.220.

“The session didn’t turn out exactly as we wanted it to be, but it was the best we could do,” said Mladin. “We have an acceleration deficit at certain tracks at the moment that we can’t make up and this is one of those tracks. We‘re going to try a few different things tomorrow morning to try and make the bike work a bit better and go from there. Jake (Zemke) has
about half a second on everybody at the moment, so we’re a bit down on him, but it is a long race around here.”

The short 2.12km (1.315miles) Pikes Peak layout offers different challenges to those on longer circuits. A good start in tomorrow’s race
will be followed passing a large number of lapped riders while trying to get the best out of the tyres which will be heavily loaded on the left hand side.

“We have to work hard in the early part of tomorrow’s race, see if we can get up front and what pace we can run as well as planning our strategy from there. Due to the short nature of this track, we come across lapped riders quicker and more often than at other tracks. We could come across the first group after about eight laps or so, so in a 48-lap race, your management
through the traffic is important. Race management is important in any race, but this one especially, it’s one of those races where we are looking to make up time, so tomorrow if we can’t get the job done, we’ll have to manage
the points as best we can.”

“Dunlop have a few new tyres for us this weekend. Being a bowl (banked speedway), they are like Daytona-type tyres and the things don’t have that much grip, it’s like a little Daytona and the tyres are made to last the race distance.”

Mladin arrived at the famous Colorado mountains circuit holding a 25-point lead over DuHamel in the championship with Zemke now just a further
point away in third after collecting an additional point for today’s pole position.

This weekend’s round of the championship features an abbreviated 2-day schedule which has been embraced by many teams and riders, with the
Superbike competitors having just one 1-hour practice session this morning, prior to the afternoon’s 30-minute grid determining qualifying session. Tomorrow’s schedule will see the Superbikes out on the track for a 30-minute
practice in the morning, followed by the running of the 48-lap (100km) Superbike national in the afternoon.

RESULTS

QUALIFYING, Round 8, 2004 AMA Chevrolet Superbike Championship, Top 10
1. Jake Zemke (Erion Honda) 53.774 secs
2. Miguel DuHamel (American Honda) 54.220
3. Mat Mladin (Yoshimura Suzuki) 54.413
4. Aaron Yates (Yoshimura Suzuki) 54.548
5. Ben Bostrom (American Honda) 54.717
6. Josh Hayes (Attack Kawasaki) 54.890
7. Eric Bostrom (Ducati Austin) 55.297
8. John Haner (Hooters Suzuki) 55.821
9. Shawn Higbee (KWS Suzuki) 55.849
10. Geoff May (Prieto Suzuki) 55.969

2004 AMA Chevrolet Superbike Championship (Points after 7 of 18 rounds)
1. Mat Mladin (243, 5 wins); 2. Miguel DuHamel (218, 2 wins), 3. Jake Zemke (217), 4. Geoff May (154); 5. Eric Bostrom (147), 6. Lee Acree
(136), 7. John Haner (132), 8. Larry Pegram (117), 9. Josh Hayes (112), 10. Cory West (109).


More, from a press release issued by Parts Unlimited Ducati Austin:

BOSTROM TO START FROM SECOND ROW AT PIKES PEAK

Fountain (Colorado) – Parts Unlimited Ducati Austin’s Eric Bostrom cut nearly a second off his morning practice time in the afternoon session to finish seventh in today’s qualifying at Pikes Peak International Raceway. Bostrom’s qualifying time of 55.297 on the Ducati 999 was recorded in clear but windy conditions at the tight 1.3 mile (2.12 km) circuit.

“The bike is fast and we have a lot of grip,” Eric said after finishing his day at the mile-high venue. “Unfortunately, we didn’t do as well as we would have liked; I just can’t quite get it hooked into the corners and that’s something we’re going to work on. I think tomorrow morning we’re looking to take off another half-second or so, and then we should be ready for the race. Anything but a win here would be a real disappointment, but right now we’re hoping the changes we’re making tonight will benefit us tomorrow.”

Bostrom, four times the race winner at Pikes Peak, looks to make an impression in tomorrow’s long race. “The race is 48 laps long, but we’ll need to charge hard the whole time to stay with the lead pack,” Eric said.

Tomorrow’s 48-lap (100 km) AMA Superbike race is scheduled for 3:30 p.m. (Mountain Daylight Time).

TIMES: 1. Zemke (Honda) 53.775; 2. Duhamel (Honda) 54.220; 3. Mladin (Suzuki) 54.412; 4. Yates (Suzuki) 54.548; 5. B. Bostrom (Honda) 54.717; 6. Hayes (Kawasaki) 54.890; 7. E. Bostrom (Ducati) 55.297; etc.


More, from a press release issued by Team Valvoline EMGO Suzuki:

RAPP, HASKOVEC, AND PERIS QUALIFY AT PIKES PEAK

Team Valvoline EMGO Suzuki got up to speed quickly at Pikes Peak International Raceway in the opening day of the fifth round of the 2004 AMA roadracing series. It was necessary to do so, as this weekend’s event follows a two-day format as opposed to the typical three-day schedule for most AMA events.

The compacted schedule meant that the squad had to be fully dialed-in for an afternoon full of final qualifying sessions in preparation of Sunday’s races.

Fresh off his Formula Xtreme pole position at Barber Motorsports Park, Vincent Haskovec put in another front row qualifying effort this weekend. His time of 56.053 seconds around the tight 1.3-mile circuit aboard his GSX-R600 was good enough to take the fourth position on the grid.

Steve Rapp continued his strong Barber form aboard his Michelin-shod GSX-R600 as well. The Californian was fourth fastest in the morning Supersport free practice and qualified as the top Suzuki-mounted rider in class with a 56.172 second lap, good for sixth.

His young teammate Chris Peris claimed a second row grid position, out-qualifying a factory Suzuki entry. The Canadian posted a time of 56.521 seconds to take eighth on the grid.

In Superstock, Rapp and Haskovec qualified their
GSX-R750s alongside each other on the outside of the third row. Rapp was eleventh fastest (56.222) while Haskovec was twelfth (56.305). However, their smaller displacement machines are expected to perform better under racing conditions in the 28-lap final around the
tire-eating raceway.

At the end of the day Team Valvoline EMGO Suzuki Crew Chief Keith Perry said, “It wasn’t a bad day, but it could have been better. After running so well last week, we don’t feel all that good about our results today. There were some bright spots but we feel we should be even higher up than we are.”

“In Formula Xtreme, clearly we need to find a little more power,” he continued. “We’ve been pushing the development along on that bike, but we’re still waiting on a few parts.”

“I’m pretty positive about Supersport. I think we can run both our riders up with the lead guys,” Perry said.

“In Superstock, we struggled a little with the 750 at a track we thought it would be better at. The 1000s did a little better here than we thought, but our tire situation is looking good, and we usually shine a little brighter in the races than in qualifying. We did all of our laps on race tires while many others relied on qualifiers to set their best times.”


More, from another press release issued by Team Valvoline EMGO Suzuki:

Print, Radio, TV: Valvoline EMGO Suzuki Two-seater Gives More Media Guest Rides At PPIR

Steve Rapp and the Valvoline EMGO Suzuki two-seat
GSX-R1000 Superbike covered all the bases during promoter practice Friday, May 21 at Pikes Peak International Raceway (PPIR), giving guest rides to reporters from newspaper, radio and television media outlets.

Liz Somers, a Copy Editor for one of Denver, Colorado’s major daily newspaper was the first guest rider on the 180-horsepower, 187 mph machine. “It was great. It was exhilarating,” said Somers. “It was fun to go around the track and feel how it feels to lean against the bike. Actually, I had my foot scrape the road a little bit. Now I know why they do it. It’s so much fun!”

Asked what she thought of the opportunity to ride on the two-seater, Somers said, “I think it’s great, especially for people who aren’t race fans, to give them an idea of what it is and how fit these guys have to be and how mentally prepared they have to be for the race. A lot of people don’t realize that. They think you just hop on a bike and go.”

Maureen “Mo” Redfern, co-host of KILO 93.4 FM’s popular morning show “Ross & Mo Mornings” in Colorado Springs rode second and said, “It was bad ass! It’s got to be the hottest thing I’ve ever done. It was unbelievably fun. The first lap was scary as hell, and then after a while I started to get into it. Actually, after nine laps I probably could have been a racer myself.

“I couldn’t believe how close we got to the ground in the turns. Oh my God! That is unbelievable. When it happened the first time, you think there’s got to be something wrong. The first thing that goes through you’re head is, ‘This is bad. This isn’t going to work.’ And it does. It’s amazing how quickly it works! So like I said the third time around I was ready. Then it quit.

“We’ve been talking about it (the two-seater ride) for two days (on the radio show), and I think we’ll be talking about it for two more days. If it was just been a promotion, we would’ve talked about just as long as we had to, and that would’ve been it, it would’ve been done. Now we’ll talk about it…in fact, I’ll talk about it for years now and how cool I am and how gay the guys (at the radio station) are because they didn’t get to do it. Yeah, we’ll talk about this a lot. It’s huge! It’s better than getting paid.”

Asked to compare her ride to other experiences in her life, Redfern gave a startling revelation. “Well, I did get to fly with the Thunderbirds once,” said Redfern. “But that was terrifying. They try to scare you and try to make you throw up. They mess with you. And Steve (Rapp) was very safe, very calm. I could feel that he was clam, and that comforted me a lot. He was just relaxed and everything was cool. Absolutely, this is much better, by far, than flying with the Thunderbirds.”

The final rider on the bike was Fox Sports Rocky Mountain television news anchor Chuck Garfien, who said, “It’s like nothing I’ve ever experienced. I always look as a sport as something with a ball. This doesn’t have a ball, but there’s definitely athletics involved and the speed, the turns and the braking. It was an experience.

“I’ve always seen the races on television, and I never really knew what it was like to be on the bike. For the first time I’m now on the bike and see what these guys do, and they’re not just drivers, they’re athletes. I definitely have a new found appreciation.

“Steve (Rapp) was great, a great ambassador to the sport, and driver, as well. He made me feel comfortable, because going into it I was like a little ninny, like a little grandmother. But he and everyone on the team made it very comfortable for me, and I’m glad I did it.”