From a press release issued Mat Mladin Motorsports:

MLADIN UPBEAT FOR AMERICAN SUPERBIKE ROUND AT LAGUNA SECA

Monterey, California, USA – This coming weekend will again see California’s Laguna Seca Raceway host a combined round of Superbike action with rounds of the World Superbike Championship and American AMA Chevrolet Superbike Championship being held concurrently at the Monterey circuit.

In past years, the leading competitors in the AMA series have taken the opportunity to take ‘wild card’ entries into the SWC races, but rule changes for this years SWC means that many of the AMA riders, including Australian Mat Mladin, will not be able to do so and will concentrate their efforts on their own championship battle.

With Mladin’s focus firmly on the single 28-lap AMA Superbike race (which will run in between the two SWC races on Sunday) he will be aiming to replicate his efforts from 2003 where he broke through to record his first AMA Superbike race win at Laguna.

With eleven of this years eighteen rounds of the championship completed, Yoshimura Suzuki mounted Mladin arrives here this weekend holding a slender six-point lead in the championship over Miguel DuHamel (358 – 352), with fellow Honda rider Jake Zemke a further four points adrift in third.

Given his position at the top of the points table and that he is coming off some strong results of late, including a very productive two-day test session at Mid Ohio last week, Mladin and his crew are looking forward to this coming weekend’s round of the championship.

“We won here last year, so we are coming off a good result in that aspect, but more importantly we need another good result there this year,” said Mladin. “The points are really closing up now and with 11 of the 18 races run, we’re well past half way in the championship and everything is pretty much all square at the top. We’re looking not only for a good result here, but also at some of the next upcoming rounds that’s for sure.

“The last couple of tracks that we have raced on have suited our rivals more than us, but we’re hoping that some of the last few races will suit us a little as well and allow us to pick up a win here and there. We’re working hard on closing the gap and believe that we have done that. The difference in level of equipment between some of our rivals and us has been the key this year. Their new models have much better suited the rules this year than ours and we have been fighting a bit of an uphill battle against that, but at the moment we are also winning that battle, which again is a credit to our team.”

“Laguna is one of those race tracks where you’ve got to be smooth, you can’t rush corners and that sort of thing. We’re looking forward to it. We had a good result there last year and feel that we can do an equally good job again this weekend. We’re also coming from a good two-day test session at Mid Ohio last week where we left with the fastest time. Those times, along with the results at the past two rounds have us in a positive mood, so the whole team is looking forward to what has to be done here.”

Practice and qualifying for this weekend’s round will commence on Friday, with the final qualifying session scheduled for late Saturday afternoon, while Sunday’s schedule will see the AMA race slotted in between the two World Championship races.

LAGUNA SECA RACEWAY – FAST FACTS

Circuit length: 3.610km (2.2miles)

2003 AMA Pole position: Mat Mladin (Yoshimura Suzuki) 1:25.549 mins

2003 AMA Results:
1. Mat Mladin (Yoshimura Suzuki)
2. Aaron Yates (Yoshimura Suzuki)
3. Eric Bostrom (Team Kawasaki)

Lap Record: Anthony Gobert (Ducati) 1:25.185 (1999)

2004 AMA Chevrolet Superbike Championship (Points after 11 of 18 rounds)
1. Mat Mladin (358, 5 wins); 2. Miguel DuHamel (352, 4 wins), 3. Jake Zemke (348, 1 win), 4. Eric Bostrom (262, 1 win), 5. Geoff May (241); 6. Ben Bostrom (210), 7. John Haner (200), 8. Aaron Yates (189), 9. Eric Wood (181), 10. Cory West (167).