I’m still playing catch up, this time with the AMA Superbike races held at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course a week ago. Seems like there are some interesting ways of measuring success at Mid-Ohio, so I’ll focus on some unique forms of quantifying differences.

First and foremost, the biggest story of the weekend was that it was raining cats and dogs on Thursday night and the linger affects of this weather influenced the whole weekend. The first practice sessions on Friday were slower than cold molasas to get started because water was bubbling up through the track. More rain was forecast for the weekend and this made the topic of racing in the rain on the tricky Mid-Ohio track a hot one. Most of the riders felt the track surface was inappropriate for a rain race and Mat Mladin went so far as to declare he wouldn’t race if it rained Saturday or Sunday. While it did eventually rain on Sunday, it was just a wee sprinkle and the track was dry by the time the Superbike race was flagged off.

But for the first race on Saturday afternoon rain wasn’t an issue. On a dry track, Mladin continued to do what he’s done all season…start from the pole and just clear off on the rest of the field. Mladin’s win was bodacious, carding a 11 second lead over second place Ben Spies and third place Eric Bostrom. Aaron Yates ran in second place for most of the race but crashed out 3/4 of the way through the race, handing the place to his Texan teammate. Also notable was that American Honda’s Jake Zemke ran in the top five for the early laps but a mechanical failure on his CBR took him out of the race.

When the boys finally lined up on Sunday, after being delayed a couple of hours while waiting for the track to dry after a morning shower, all eyes were on Mladin. He had won the first race by a country mile and given his form this year was expected to do the same in race two. A second win would net him a 44 point lead over second place Ben Spies and surely set the stage for a conservative run over the last four races to sew up the title. Instead, Mladin got a lousy start when the green flag flew while Ducati’s Eric Bostrom got one of his patented killer starts to take the holeshot. Mladin started charging forward, eventually turning the fastest lap of the race. Eric pulled a gap over second place Yates while Mladin closed up on the rear wheel of his fellow Yoshimura Suzuki rider. On lap eleven, Bostrom drifted a little wide at the Carousel and Yates tried to tighten his line to go for a pass. Instead, he asked for just a smidge more traction than this rear tire could deliver resulting in a lowside. Mladin, directly behind Yates at the time, followed Yates off the track and eventually tipped over on the wet grass. Bostrom inherited a monster lead and took the checkers with a 6 second gap over surprise podium visitor Miguel Duhamel in second and Ben Spies in third. Zemke was again out with a mechanical, giving Honda a schizophrenic pair of race two result. The Red Riders got another boost, in addition to Duhamel’s fantastic second place, when Kurtis Roberts brought his Erion Honda home in fifth behind Neil Hodgson, making this Kurtis’ best finish of the season. While Suzuki was disappointed losing two of their three factory riders in a single crash their pain was lessened a tad by Jordan Racing’s Steve Rapp coming home sixth and teammate Jason Pridmore following him home for seventh.

The mathematics of the weekend work out like this. Mladin loses a boatload of points to Ben Spies and now only has a 9 point lead in the championship battle. Bostrom gained a massive 66 points on Aaron Yates and leapfrogged into third in the championship. In fact, the points accruals starting at Pikes Peak show an interesting story. Spies has earned a stunning 177 points in the past six races while Mladin has earned 170 and Eric Bostrom 167. Yates, in stark contract, has only added 87 to his tally. This tells the story, as Spies and Mladin have pulled a nearly unassailable gap on everyone else but the race for third has tightened up considerably between Bostrom and Yates.

The trends are equally interesting. Ducati have won four of the last six races but the two teammates on the 999s have also had three DNFs in that same time period. Mladin has three wins, two seconds and one DNF over that time while fellow Yosh rider Spies has maintained his amazing rookie season performance with two second place and two third place finishes. Clearly the Ducatis have come good here at the end of the season but its mainly been because of the misfortune of Mladin on two occasions that things look as rosy as they do. Eric’s three wins at PPIR, Laguna and Mid-Ohio have come just in the nick of time, as silly season is hard upon us and EBoz’s two year contract comes to an end this September. Surely this late charge by one of the most talented riders in the paddock won’t go unnoticed by team managers.

One rider that doesn’t have to worry about next year is Mat Mladin who announced at Mid-Ohio that he had signed a contract renewal with Suzuki that will seem him racing with them through 2008. I’m sure Mladin, soon to be a six time AMA champ, is making a metric shitload of dosh (and deserves every penny) and may well be in a position to run his own team next year, should he desire it. Whether its Mat or someone else, expect the Mat Mladin team to expand to two riders in 2006.

The history books will show that Hodgson, Spies and Bostrom all won races in 2005. Unfortunately, those stats don’t show just how one sided the season has been. Luck is an important part of racing and Mladin has had a skosh more bad luck this year that the other riders. Other than his Fontana clutch failure and being taken out by Yates at Mid-Ohio, he has only been off the podium once: his forth place finish at PPIR after pitting for new tires. For him to go into VIR in a tight points battle is good for the fans but ultimately shows how the AMA points system rewards consistency over outright wins. Spies has only been off the podium three times (Infinion, Road American and Laguna), which is astounding for his first full season on a Superbike, but has only won once. He deserves accolades galore for his riding but that record shouldn’t give him a shot at the title against so dominant a rider as Mladin. I’d rather see a points system that encourages riders to go for the win…then I think we would get a truer measurement of the series champ.

[image from the DC Sportbikes web site.]

The way to make a diamond is to take the proper material, basically raw carbon, and then put it under tremendous pressure for a long time. In the end, the black carbon is transformed into a naturally clear, incredibly hard diamond. Well, perhaps the best sign that Hayden has finally come of age is that he is now being subjected to the famous Rossi pressure.

After qualifying it was birthday boy Hayden’s Honda that would be lining up on pole position for the German GP. During the post-qualifying press conference Vale fired his first shot at Nicky by publicly stating that Gibernau and Biaggi are the threats at the Sachsenring circuit, not Hayden. In the past, Rossi has focused his psychological death ray on Biaggi, Gibernau and Melandri…to devastating effects in all three cases. That he is now spending some time bad mouthing Hayden is perhaps the strongest sign yet that he considers the Kentucky Kid a threat.

When the bikes lined up in front of an amazing 95,000 fans it was time to see how Hayden would respond to this first attack. He did so by launching off the line and immediately pulling an eight tenths of a second gap over chasing Rossi. So far, so good. Then John Hopkins got sent into low earth orbit after getting high sided off his Suzuki which resulted in a vicious landing. As Hopkins lay writhing on the track, the race was red flagged. On the re-start, it was again Hayden with the hole shot but Rossi was much closer and quickly took the lead. Gibernau, also under pressure to beat both Rossi and Melandri in order to reclaim his position as a viable MotoGP champ, then charged forward passing both riders to take the lead. Unlike past races where Hayden seemed tapped out just to hang with the leaders this time he was able to take the fight forward to his fellow competitors. He passed Rossi and took off after Gibernau. As the laps wound down Rossi again put the squeeze on Hayden, eventually forcing the pass, and started to apply his patented pressure to Gibernau. On the last lap, Sete again cracked under the strain and ran wide in the first corner. Valentino took his eighth win of the season, Sete recovered to save the runner up spot and Nicky returned to the rostrum for his second time in three races.

I know I’ve focused on Nicky Hayden a few times lately but I’m still thrilled to see him growing so much this season after stalling out most of last season. I think that one thing he still has to learn (in addition to learning how to race in the rain!) is dealing with pressure, both in the press and on the track. Being a great racer isn’t good enough.,,Biaggi, Gibernau and Melandri all fit that mold. To beat Rossi, it takes more than just talent, work ethic and an amazing bike. It also takes a mental toughness that seems generally lacking in the MotoGP paddock these days. The real test of whether Hayden will ever be a MotoGP champion is how well he parries to the Rossi attack. He got a little taste of the battle before the race but also spent quite a few laps with the Italian breathing down this neck on Sunday. While Rossi ultimately won the race, Hayden was able to get some important schooling…lessons from which he was able to learn. As long as the 24 year old can keep growing as a rider, his hopes for a world title aren’t misplaced.

As for Gibernau, he needs the upcoming three week break more than anyone. He’s been crushed season after season and needs to regroup after being badly pummelled over the last couple of months. Its been over a year since his last win and its been his own mistakes that have plagued him since the first race of the 2005 season…he is still feeling the tremors from that last corner bump back at Jerez.

Biaggi is also continuing a trend, mainly that he qualifies and starts poorly but comes on strong to rescue a reasonable finishing position, a forth in this case. Honda is rumored to have a new frame and Biaggi is rumored to have run it at the Sachsenring. I think Max needs more than new bike parts to fix his problems, after all Melandri, Gibernau, Hayden and Barros have all run at the front this season. Like Gibernau, Max is being played by Rossi like a puppet and desperately needs to get back to racing on his own terms rather than on Vale’s terms. He’s had his best shot at getting his head together over the past few months because he was off Rossi’s radar. His Repsol seat probably has Pedrosa’s name on it already so now all he can hope for is to salvage a Honda satellite ride for next year. That’s a lot to think about for three long days…

Melandri seems to have come apart like a cheap tissue since his incredible performance at Assen. It was at the Dutch track that The Doctor dropped his psychological bomb on Marco and the stats at ground zero don’t look good: a crash at Laguna, a crash at Donington and now a seventh in Germany. He is just barely maintaining his second place in the standings and has probably lost all hope of taking the MotoGP title this year. Melandri has to regroup and come back strong at the Brno circuit in order to salvage any confidence for 2006. At least he’ll be fighting for runner-up against fellow Rossi victims Gibernau and Biaggi…

Ducati and Suzuki both desperately need the three week break, perhaps worse than anyone else. Both teams have been mired mid-pack for most of the season despite their riders putting forth heroic efforts. Roberts’ second place in the rain not withstanding, all the Bridgestone teams have been struggling just to see the tail end of the Honda/Yamaha bullet train. Whether this is a tire problem or a bike problem is hard to tell but Kawasaki’s brief flashes of improvement haven’t been mirrored in the other two team’s results. Suzuki needs the break doubly bad since John Hopkins’ two crashes this weekend mean he needs to cram a six week recovery time for his broken foot into the MotoGP mid-summer 21 day vacation. Given how many times Ducati’s Carlos Checa has crashed this season, its amazing he isn’t nursing broken bones as well. Still, he’ll probably need the break to turn down the volume of that bell ringing noise in his ears.

And finally, Rossi needs to take a little break as well. Why? Well, he’s been doing quadruple duty this season by racing for Yamaha, educating the young guys, crushing the old guys and sticking it to Honda all at the same. He’s gotta be tired! Besides, he needs to build up his energy for 2006 when he’ll be doing it all over again.

[image from the Nicky Hayden web site.]