Five-time AMA Superbike Champion Mat Mladin has scored every point possible so far this season – including all pole positions, three times most laps led and three race wins – from Daytona to the double header in Alabama on April 21-23. The Superbike stars will travel to California Speedway for the Suzuki Superbike Challenge this weekend, April 29-May 1. Last year, Mladin swept both Superbike events on California Speedway’s 2.3-mile, 21-turn course and could become the first competitor at the Southern California racing facility to earn number five and six race wins in a row (after winning both Superbike events in 2003 and 2004). On Sunday, Mladin swept the field in Alabama, blowing away his competition and giving him a 9.740 second lead over second place Neil Hodgson, who also finished second at Daytona International Speedway in March. Ben Spies finished third with Miguel Duhamel and Eric Bostrom taking the fourth and fifth place spots, respectively. Teammates Aaron Yates and Spies gave Yoshimura Suzuki a complete podium sweep behind Mladin in Saturday’s race. Hodgson finished fourth and Duhamel finished fifth. Jamie Hacking won the Alabama Supersport event with a slim margin of 0.580 of a second over second place Tommy Hayden. Roger Lee Hayden finished third, followed by Jason DiSalvo and Aaron Gobert in fourth and fifth, respectively. Tommy Hayden is the defending winner of the California Speedway event. In Superstock competition, Tommy Hayden won in Alabama followed closely by DiSalvo in second. Yates finished third, Hacking and Vincent Haskovec finished fourth and fifth, respectively. Spies won last year’s Supersport race in Southern California. Jake Zemke won the Formula Xtreme event over the weekend, with Duhamel coming in second. Haskovec was in third, while Ben Attard finished fourth and Chris Peris was fifth. Duhamel won at California Speedway last year. Be at California Speedway when the AMA circuit hits town for the Suzuki Superbike Challenge on April 29 – May 1. Children 12 and under are free with a paid adult admission. Tickets are available by calling 800-944-RACE [7223] or visiting www.californiaspeedway.com.

Eric Bostrom (Ducati Austin): There are plenty of passing lanes around the whole track, especially now that is has been repaved, it’s just not that easy. You really have to enforce a pass at Infineon Raceway, which is difficult. It’s the most physically demanding track we visit each year and you can make the pass but you have to make it stick. I’d say turns 7, 9 and 11 are the best spots. Jamie Hacking (Yamaha): More passing zones have been created with the new surface so you can take more chances than you would have before. One passing zone many guys might not mention is Turn 2. If your bike is handling well and your tires are good you can make a clean pass there and hold it. Turn 7 is one of the easiest places to make a pass but it’s hard to maintain it. A bike can come right underneath you and take it back going into Turn 8. Roger Hayden (Kawasaki): I’ve got to say the main passing area is Turn 7. If you get a good run out of the Carousel (Turn 6) and up the drag strip, you can make it happen right there. That’s a great spot to set someone up. The trick is making it stick. That’s the tough part. Mat Mladin (Suzuki): There are a few spots where you can make a pass; I’d say Turn 5, entering the Carousel (Turn 6) and Turn 7. There just aren’t too many generous passing zones but it can be done. Aaron Yates (Suzuki): It really depends on who you are trying to pass and what the grip is like on your tires. We are all pretty equal as riders and this is such a tough track that you really have to be careful. We’re all on the edge and it can get a little tough out there. I’d say Turn 7 is the best zone, but there are others.

After a difficult couple of years in MotoGP, following on from a championship win in the 250 class, Marco Melandri’s world changed after he got the call from his native Italy. Now in a team run by Fausto Gresini, Melandri has been reprogrammed and re-engineered inside, pointed in the right direction by a group of people with a proven track record at building bikes, riders and points tallies. Gordon Ritchie describes how Gresini and co changed the trajectory of one of MotoGP’s most promising upwardly mobile riding talents. The latest product of race-mad Italy to take on the world in MotoGP is Marco Melandri. World Champ in 250s in 2002, his promotion into MotoGP in 2003 was a torrid affair. Crashes, injuries, inconsistency and an overriding desire to win, so strong it ultimately became his undoing, dropped Melandri off the radar as the next big thing in MotoGP. A lifeline was offered in the off-season by one of the most respected teams in the entire MotoGP paddock, the Gresini squad, headed up by the diminutively proportioned giant of a personality that is double 125 champion, Fausto Gresini. So since he joined the close-knit squad in the winter, Marco has – by turns- been cosseted, cajoled, hoodwinked and cuddled into a rider who has finished the first two races of his new career in third and fourth places. How on earth did that happen? Defined intervention, with a distinctly family flavour. It was obvious to Gresini, and to his massively experienced crew chief Fabrizio Cecchini, that Marco’s talents would only flourish in the correct growing conditions. So they adopted a carefully considered plan to build confidence and calmness in equal parts, and curb Melandri’s natural racer’s urge to go as fast as possible, absolutely all the time. He is, after all, only 22-years old. Fausto Gresini is no stranger to helping Honda riders progress their careers. He was a prime mover in the transition of Loris Capirossi from enfant-terrible to double 125-title winner, after Fausto broke his leg and ended his own chance of yet another crown. Before joining Fausto, Sete Gibernau was also not quite the force he is now, thanks in part to the all-conquering RC211V, and the efforts of the Gresini team. For Fausto, signing a rider like Marco fulfills two key roles. One is bringing a young rider of talent into the fold for the future, and the other is the sheer challenge of getting talent to shine through in an increasingly consistent fashion. As Fausto himself stated, “In my opinion Marco has a chance to enjoy a good experience with us in MotoGP. At 22 he is a very young rider, and with one 250cc title to his credit, he obviously has a lot of potential. But right now what is most important is that he can have a team which is like a family for him. In my team, it is like family.” The family feeling is due to the long relationships enjoyed by some members of staff, who have been an integral part of the teams ops since day one. “The keys to Marco’s development are many,” says Fausto, “Fabrizio Cecchini, who worked at the top level with Daijiro Kato, for example. He is a very good chief mechanic and controls everything for Marco. I have known Fabrizio for 20 years, he has been with me since the very beginning.” Fabrizio takes up the story himself, of how they started turning a talented but troubled rider into a thinking, believing, focused MotoGP competitor. “When Marco arrived in our team he had two difficult years in MotoGP, losing confidence in himself and his team,” said Cecchini. “Our plan was to put him under no pressure, to explain everything I know about the bike to him step-by-step. Engine, electronics, tyres. Then we got him to evaluate just one thing at a time, concentrated only on that. We wanted to understand what he said. Marco appreciated our approach and he grew in confidence. We needed to get him to trust us when he was out on the track.” Melandri willingly acknowledges what the team were doing for him, and realized early on that it was just what he needed. “When I arrived in the Gresini team it was just after what had probably been the worst period of my career and my life. I was very sad inside because nothing was good last year. Thinking about racing, I had completely lost confidence and everything was so difficult for me. For me it was important to have good relationship with the team. They understood my situation and really it was like I was a very young baby. The first things they did were to give me confidence and try to make me smile. When I started to smile, to understand, we talked together about the plan for the tests through the whole winter. At that time it was impossible for me to think that I could be on the podium at the first race in Jerez. But even after the first test I was very happy because when I stopped at the garage I saw on people’s faces that they were smiling, happy to work with me. This gave me a lot of confidence. The 2004 season was difficult to forget but the new team helped me to enjoy myself again. When you forget what you did before, only then can you start again to rebuild something new and better.” Marco, having now ridden a large variety of two-stroke and with two years on four-strokes, now knows a good bike when he sees it, and pays homage to the part the proved RC211V has played in his recent turnaround. “The balance of the Honda is simpler and it is good because you cannot move so many things. You cannot change a lot of geometry on the bike. Sometimes you have some problems but you see some of the other Honda riders are fast. And you think inside yourself ‘they can go fast with the same bike that you have.’ I think this gives you a big motivation. My Yamaha last year was very different from Valentino’s bike. You could change every kind of geometry of the bike. When you lost your way, it was so difficult to come back.” Gresini adds more detail on how to re-educate, “In the winter Marco worked more for mileage and feeling. On two occasions he had crashes in off-season testing, and after that he felt like he was finished. So we had to explain to him in details why he crashed, what his main target was, not just the lap time. All we asked him about was the balance of the bike, how the tyres felt. We were not worried about the gap to other riders; we wanted him to think about the more important things, like how the bike feels. The bike did not need developing, Marco needed to develop.” Marco’s headstrong approach to riding when he joined the team at first may have been a necessary evil for any rider intent on beating the best in the world, but Cecchini took some radical steps to protect his new charge from himself. “The mistake that all riders make first time out is to push to the limit before they know the bike,” affirms Cecchini. “The first things that Marco wanted to see were the times, so one of the first things I did was to cover the display on the bike and the displays on the computers in the pit box, with sheets of paper. Marco could not see any times. He asked about them and I said, ‘don’t worry about that, how do you feel.’ There was an immediate change when he covered the times up. He was only three tenths slower than Sete, without realizing what times he did, just by not pushing to match a certain lap time.” Cecchini continues, “Before covering the times Marco had said “tomorrow I will go faster, definitely faster” – and he went half a second slower. He was only obsessed with pushing, not working with the bike. The other thing I realized was that if there was another rider in front of Marco, then he would try to catch him. Even if Marco did not have a good feeling with the bike, he was just thinking about catching the rider in front. So he made a lot of mistakes, and when he came back into the pits he would complain about the bike in certain sections. But it was only so that he could go faster than the other rider through that section. So every time he came up behind another rider we put out his pitboard and brought him into the pits! At the first few winter tests he was lapping always alone! All we wanted to do was to get him used to the bike. Only when we felt he was prepared, did we let him lap quickly on the bike with other riders.” Gresini takes up the story, “If Marco is practicing on track and it is no good we will stop him in the box. He sometimes says, ‘Ah, I am bad and many riders are stronger.’ Then we sit him down, keep him talking, talking about the bike, what is good and bad about the set-up, where it works, what he prefers. Then only then send him back out. After we have finished his mentality and ready to restart, he is changed and he can go back out. If he had just continued on as he was, he would have gone down.” In summation of his new work in progress, Cecchini acknowledges that in a team with Sete Gibernau and with a sorted machine and tyre package there was only one variable left. Marco. Which made the task clearer, if still a challenge for all. “The bike is already so balanced and together, running good tyres, that all we had to work on was Marco. We worked only on the mentality of the rider.” And it has certainly worked out so far. Two top four finishes, in as many MotoGP races, are the proof of that, with more promised when Marco is ready to make the next upward move. For Gresini, it is all about mentality, and he knows it has already paid off. “The mind is more important than ever before. Starting on a Yamaha was a complicated way for Marco in MotoGP. I spoke to Michelin and last year they were not that happy when they worked with him. But this year they are much happier. Now it is a complete change. It is important to have the correct willpower to work and win. And we are helping Marco with that more than anything.” For Cecchini, Melandri has been a willing and able pupil, who has passed all the important first hurdles with room to spare. Even Marco’s podium placing in round one came not through aggression but a cool head and attention to the job in hand. “The first race is like an examination of all the winter tests, so it is important not to try and exceed the limit,” said Fabrizio. “Otherwise you crash – and destroy all the work you have done over the winter. At Jerez, when we saw Marco was at the limit, we put out the board to say ‘OK, slow down’, because he had a good gap to fifth. Marco listened to us, responded by slowing down just a little and that was a victory for us. So when the rider in front crashed, and Marco got the podium well, that was just the final prize to cap it all.” After the job they have done in turning Marco, the lost talent, into Marco, the MotoGP racer, it seems everyone in the Gresini team deserves a prize of some sort.

Shanghai ready to welcome MotoGP at Taobao.com Grand Prix of China The MotoGP World Championship makes a historic first visit to Shanghai this weekend for the inaugural Taobao.com Grand Prix of China. The Shanghai International Circuit, situated outside China’s prosperous metropolitan port city, plays host to the event as the world’s premier motorcycles and riders bring their spectacular showcase to an estimated population of over 1.3 billion people. The Chinese public have been given their first taste of MotoGP action during the opening two rounds of the 2005 season, which have been screened on Shanghai TV and Dragon TV. Valentino Rossi and Alex Barros took victories at Jerez and Estoril respectively, with the Italian now leading the Championship by seven points from the Brazilian. For Rossi the unprecedented event represents a completely fresh challenge and an opportunity to consolidate a dominant start to his title defence. Meanwhile, Barros has the opportunity to establish himself as the World Champion’s main challenger ahead of the likes of fellow Honda riders Sete Gibernau and Max Biaggi, who have both enjoyed indifferent starts to their campaigns. Whilst Gibernau finished second to Yamaha’s Rossi in the opening round at Jerez before crashing out of the lead at Estoril, Biaggi progressed from seventh place to third respectively and will look to remain on an upward trend as he makes his 200th Grand Prix start this Sunday. It will also be a milestone race for Shinya Nakano, who will be making his 100th appearance. Nakano will be joined in the Kawasaki garage this weekend by his former team-mate Olivier Jacque, who clinched the 250cc title ahead of the Japanese rider in a thrilling climax to the 2000 season. Jacque has been called up to replace injured rider Alex Hofmann for the next two rounds after the German broke his wrist in a freak crash prior to the Estoril race. Also missing from the usual entry list this weekend is British rider Shane Byrne, who will instead head for Jerez as Team KR and KTM perform tests on a new engine after running out of parts to take to China. Meanwhile, Japanese rider Makoto Tamada faces a late fitness test after also injuring his wrist in Portugal. The unique characteristics of the racetrack and its impressive architecture are set to make Shanghai International Circuit a highlight of the MotoGP season. Vast grandstands overlook equally impressive pits and a paddock complex adjacent to the high-speed 5,451km circuit, which includes two very fast straights and a series of tight corners. Like Valentino Rossi in the premier-class, 250cc World Champion Daniel Pedrosa heads to China on top of the standings after taking one victory from the opening two rounds. However, the influx of talent to have stepped up to the quarter-litre class from the 125cc series this season is already starting to show, with a thrilling second round in Portugal providing the closest top five finish in the class for almost three seasons. Whilst Pedrosa could only manage fourth on that occasion, Casey Stoner clinched his maiden victory in the class ahead of Andrea Dovizioso, the reigning 125cc World Champion, who now lies second in the overall standings just five points adrift of Pedrosa. Randy De Puniet, who completed the podium in Portugal, is set for his 100th start since making his Grand Prix debut in 1998. Mika Kallio leads the 125cc World Championship for the first time in his career after taking his first victory in Estoril to add to second place in the opening round at Jerez. Kallio’s historic victory was the first by any Finnish rider in the 125cc class and his country’s first Grand Prix success since Pentti Korhonen won the 350cc race in Yugoslavia in 1975. There is a slight change to the Sunday race timetable this weekend, with the action starting with the 125cc race at 12:00h local time (UTC +8) followed by the 250cc class at 13:15h and MotoGP at 15:00h.

JAMES HAYDON will don Rizla Suzuki leathers and race as a substitute for John Reynolds for the next two rounds of the British Superbike Championship at Oulton and Mondello Park. Fans-favourite JR, recovering from a broken right leg, visited his doctor at the Queens Medical Centre in Nottingham this morning. Afterwards he agreed with his Rizla Suzuki team to sit out from the Oulton and Mondello Park rounds to give himself sufficient time to heal. A decision on when he will race again will be made before the sixth round of the series at Croft in North Yorkshire on June 5th. Haydon, 30, from Sistony in Andorra, has agreed to substitute for JR in both rounds and is eager to ride the Rizla Suzuki. He has a bright history with Suzuki as he rode for the Crescent team in 1998 and 1999, taking five wins in the Superbike class. Rizla Suzuki ace Scott Smart is going to Oulton Park hoping to improve on his best ever result on the GSX-R1000 – a fifth place at Mallory Park last weekend. Superbike racing starts at 13:15 on Bank Holiday Monday, May 2nd, at Oulton Park in Cheshire. Catch all the action live on Sky Sports or the following Sunday in a highlights package on Channel 4. JR: “I have discussed my situation with my doctor and team manager, Robert Wicks. We have decided rather than trying to ride through my injury, I should rest and heal properly before coming back to fully competitive racing. I want to be in a position to ride aggressively and win races. “Rizla Suzuki has supported me through thick and thin this year and this is the right decision for my health and for the team. I will be back again as soon as I can – hopefully at Croft in early June – and I aim to thank my team and fans with race victories. In the meantime, I’ll still be at the races for Rizla Suzuki, giving whatever advice I can to Scott and James to help them score some good results for the team. I start the next phase of my rehabilitation with intensive physiotherapy from tomorrow morning onwards.” James Haydon: “This is a wonderful opportunity for me. Rizla Suzuki is a team I have always wanted to join and is the most professional in the British Superbike Championship. The GSX-R1000 looks awesome and I can’t wait to try it out this weekend! “My heart goes out to JR because I know exactly what he is going through as a rider. No rider wants to inherit a ride because another competitor is injured. I have just come back from an injury to my left hand and will build up slowly at Oulton Park. Once I am comfortable on the Rizla Suzuki I don’t see any reason why we can’t be running at the front.” Scott Smart: “I know that the podium is now within reach and will be trying my hardest at Oulton Park. The beauty of the Rizla Suzuki team is that every time we go out on the GSX-R1000 we make progress and we all know we are close to being at the front challenging for wins. I agree that this is the right decision for John and look forward to having him in the garage at the weekend.” Robert Wicks, Team Manager: “Discussing with JR whether he should race or not at Oulton and Mondello Park has been the most difficult thing I have had to do since becoming Team Manager. After discussing the best way forward with him and the team, we strongly believe giving him the next two rounds off will significantly assist his recovery. “The rigorous early season programme of testing and racing in BSB has not helped JR’s rehabilitation and it is now clearly evident that it is in his best interests to rest. We fully anticipate JR racing during the mid-to-second half of the season and once fit, I am certain he is going to be challenging for race wins. John has nothing to prove to anyone right now – the fact that he got on his Rizla Suzuki at Brands Hatch just 38 days after breaking his leg so severely says it all. “Our thanks go to James for stepping in at such short notice. We have every confidence he will be competitive on the Rizla Suzuki. “Scott proved at Mallory Park that a top result is within our grasp and the team is looking for him to step up a gear in performance at Oulton Park. He and the team are getting stronger with every race and that progress will continue this weekend.” Editorial Note: Haydon was originally slated to ride for Airwaves Ducati in 2005, but he injured his wrist in pre-season testing and was subsequently replaced by fill-in rider Gregorio Lavilla. Lavilla, a former World Superbike regular, then went on to collect strong finishes in the first two rounds of the British Superbike season, placing him second in the Championship standings. With Haydon returning to fitness in time for round three of the series at Mallory Park, Airwaves Ducati was faced with finding a way to keep Lavilla on the team or letting him go, which left open the possibility that another team would snatch up Lavilla and his Championship position. The problem was Airwaves Ducati did not have enough resources to run three riders – Lavilla, Haydon and Leon Haslam. Then just before the Mallory Park round, Haydon announced that for the good of the Airwaves Ducati team, he would step down, making room for Lavilla to continue his pursuit of the British Superbike Championship.

In response to statements made by Attack Kawasaki crew members on various Internet BBS sites (and on the Attack Kawasaki website) speculating that a fuel problem caused the Attack Kawasakis to blow up at Daytona, VP Racing Fuels Global Sales Manager Bruce Hendel today issued this statement: “VP Racing Fuels has performed a full set of tests on fuel samples taken directly from the Attack Performance Superbike gas tank as well as samples from drums they were using at Daytona. We were very concerned,” said VP’s Bruce Hendel, “and certainly wanted to help sort out any issues. Besides our in-house laboratory, we also used an independant outside test facility to back our results. The fuel samples provided by Attack Performance were found to be within specifications.”

MLADIN BRINGS UNBEATEN RECORD TO CALIFORNIA SPEEDWAY PICKERINGTON, Ohio (April 25, 2005) — Five-time champion Mat Mladin brings his Yoshimura Suzuki GSX-R1000 and a perfect record to California Speedway in Fontana for rounds four and five of the 17-race AMA Superbike Championship presented by Parts Unlimited on April 29 through May 1. The Suzuki Superbike Challenge is the championship’s lone stop in Southern California — home to many of the teams and riders in the series. Fontana marks the beginning of a busy May for the series, which will make three stops in the West next month. Mladin has been perfect in Superbike so far this season. The 33-year-old Australian has won all three races, earned every pole and led the most laps in the rounds preceding Fontana. As a result the Suzuki ace has built an impressive 22-point lead over Britain’s Neil Hodgson. If Mladin’s competition is looking for relief at Fontana it will be tough to find. Not only has Mladin swept the doubleheader the last two years there, he was also fastest in testing at the track earlier this year. “We had a great start to the season and Fontana is a race track I like,” Mladin said after sweeping the doubleheader round at Barber Motorsports Park in Birmingham, Ala., this past weekend. “I’m looking forward to racing at Fontana. We did well in testing and the new 1000 was awesome on the track. I’m looking to get on a roll and really get this season going.” Former World Superbike Champion Neil Hodgson was brought in to help return Ducati to the prominence it enjoyed on the AMA circuit in the early 1990s. The friendly Brit has shown great promise in AMA racing but realizes he has a major task in front of him. Still, Hodgson knows the season is young. “Our team has come together and made progress,” said Hodgson, who has settled in Laguna Beach. “Right now we need a little more acceleration from our bike out of the corners and I’m sure Ducati will find a solution. At the moment Mladin is riding with a lot of confidence and his team is very experienced here in America. It’s going to be a major task for our team to reach that level, but we’re chipping away and hopefully we’ll bridge the gap soon.” Suzuki’s Ben Spies lies third in the standings having earned three straight podium finishes in his first full season of AMA Superbike racing. “California Speedway is one of my strongest tracks,” Spies said. “The last three years, we’ve been on the podium and the last two years we’ve won one of the races that I’ve been in, so it’s really good. I’m in the Superbike class now, which is a lot stiffer [competition], we seem to have a pretty good set up for Fontana, so we are just going to go out there and do the best we can and try to win one, if not, get on the podium for sure.” Honda has struggled uncharacteristically so far this season. None of the team’s Superbike riders have earned a podium finish, but veteran Miguel Duhamel came close last weekend, just being nipped by Spies on the final lap to finish fourth. “I was happy that I was in a position to get a podium result last weekend,” said Duhamel, the 1995 AMA Superbike champ. “I think we’re making strong progress in our development curve and in a few more races we should be inching closer to be able to challenge for wins.” Among the independent teams Marty Craggill is showing success on the Mladin Motorsports Suzuki. Craggill has improved his finish with each outing this year and scored a season best ninth in Sunday’s Superbike final in Birmingham. Josh Hayes on the Attack Kawasaki and the M4 EMGO Suzuki rider Vincent Haskovec are also strong contenders. Saturday’s Superbike event will be televised nationally on SPEED Channel beginning at 1 p.m. EST on Sunday, May 1. Live coverage of Sunday’s Superbike final begins at 6 p.m. EST. Bring the whole family out for a great weekend of racing. Kids under 12 and free with a paid adult general admission. For ticket information call California Speedway at (800) 944-7223 or visit the website www.californiaspeedway.com