Mladin records 65th win

From Team Suzuki

Rockstar Makita Suzuki's Mat Mladin picked up his 65th career AMA Superbike victory after leading every lap and winning Saturday's race at Barber Motorsports Park in Birmingham, AL.

The race was the first of two in the double-header AMA Superbike weekend and also saw the second victory of the season for six-time AMA Superbike Champion Mladin, as well as his sixth win at Barber. All of this comes on top of Mladin picking up his 54th career AMA Superbike pole position on Saturday morning.

Rockstar Makita Suzuki's Tommy Hayden joined Mladin on the podium, thanks to an impressive third-place finish. This result marks Hayden's second AMA Superbike podium with Suzuki.

Defending AMA Superbike Champion Ben Spies crashed on lap 2, but rejoined the race and worked his way up into 11th place to salvage as many championship points as possible.

"It was a pretty good race for us, though the guy I like to race with the most wasn't in it," Mladin said. "We got a good start and I had my head down, so I didn't realise Ben had crashed. But he'll be back tomorrow and we'll put on a great show and hopefully we'll win another one. I'd like to keep it going as long as we can."

Results
1. Mat Mladin (Rockstar Makita Suzuki)
2. Jason Disalvo (Yamaha)
3. Tommy Hayden (Rockstar Makita Suzuki)
4. Jamie Hacking (Kawasaki)
5. Neil Hodgson (Honda)
6. Miguel Duhamel (Honda)
7. Eric Bostrom (Yamaha)
8. Geoff May, (Jordan Suzuki)
9. Chris Peris (Suzuki)
10. Jordan Szoke (Kawasaki)