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| Honda Release From Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course
Monday, August 04, 2008 This just in: HONDA RACING INFORMATION AMA Superbike Championship at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course Sunday August 3, 2008 Weather: Warm, sunny The American Honda team of Neil Hodgson and Miguel Duhamel rebounded from their worst day of the season to nearly finish on the podium in Sunday's Superbike race on the Honda Supercycle Weekend at the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course. One day after Hodgson suffered engine problems, and carded his first DNF of the season, and Duhamel crashed twice in a race that was red-flagged three times, started four times, and run over two hours and 15 minutes, Hodgson finished fourth with Duhamel sixth. "It's a tough, tough day, but I guess these things happen if you stay around long enough," Duhamel said on Saturday. "I also want to thank Neil's guys for really helping my guys put the bike back together for me. They all worked hard." Sunday's results were more indicative of how the weekend began. Hodgson qualified on the front row, in fourth, for the first time this season. "I normally screw up qualifying and manage to squeeze myself onto the second row so it's the first time I've been on the front row all year so I'm well pleased," he said. Hodgson was one spot off a podium position when his engine failed on the eighth lap of Saturday's race. The race was stopped when a trio of riders crashed in the oil and water. One lap earlier, Duhamel had high-sided exiting the Keyhole right in front of Hodgson, who did well to avoid him. But with a lengthy delay to clean the track, the team was able to repair the fallen machine and Duhamel made the re-start, but one lap down. The second start ended on the first lap when the leaders crashed on water a spectator had spilled on the track. Duhamel's race ended four laps into the third start when he was fell in the debris of a rider who'd crashed just in front of him. The veteran riders put that behind them and set out to battle each other on Sunday. Hodgson and Duhamel fought over fourth until the third lap when Hodgson took control. But one small mistake prevented him from staying in the draft of the third place rider and he was consigned to fourth. There was a late challenge from Aaron Yates, but the Suzuki rider crashed on the 18th of 26 laps. Duhamel had his own fight with Tommy Hayden (Suzuki), the older brother of Repsol Honda's Nicky Hayden. Hayden was slightly better on corner exit, while Duhamel was better mid-corner. But Duhamel ran into brake problems that cost him any chance of making a late run. Both races were by Mat Mladin (Suzuki) from teammate Ben Spies. Jamie Hacking (Kawasaki) finished third both days. Neil Hodgson DNF, 4th I think, well I know, I was overrevving the bike in a few spots on the limiter, but the engine had got a lot of kilometers on it and unfortunately I think I just asked too much of it and it went pop. But it went pop right on the racing line. I instantly went off the racing line to the edge of the track and then onto the grass and then toured around on and off the track on the grass, but unfortunately where it went pop, that's where all the crashes were. So I'm sorry for anybody that crashed. I feel really bad about it. But I've crashed in oil before. Unfortunately, it's one of the downsides of racing. Sunday I actually got a start and then forgot to turn the traction control on and had a bit of a moment and just lost a bit of time coming out of the Keyhole. And Miguel got back past me. By then I'd just lost that little bit of a tow that I desperately needed all weekend really to try to at least have a go at racing for third. So once that went, there was nothing I could do. I just rode on my lap time that I could ride around without it chattering, which is about a 25.0, which is about the maximum I could do, really.Miguel Duhamel DNF, 6th On Saturday, I just highsided the bike. It was real late and it was really big. Normally the traction control catches it and it does the work for you. For whatever reason that time it just kept coming around and coming around and by the time I tried to catch it it was too big and it spat me off. I think Neil did an incredible job to miss me because it spat me back onto the racing line. I thought for sure that someone was going to hit me and I was really, really lucky not to have someone run into me. On the second one I hit debris and a little bit of fuel because I was not even leaned over that much. I was thinking about going straight and the front end just locked up and threw me on the ground. I thought, 'You've got to be kidding me.' Of everybody who went through there, I was the only guy who hit the right spot and went down.Today we just put one bike together and went out and had a couple of meetings after warm-up this morning and made some correct choices and obviously the bike was quite a bit better. Still a little bit of a brake issue with the front brake coming in. It was braking, it was stopping, but the lever was coming back and I had to adjust it a lot and it was costing me some time to Tommy (Hayden). I thought I had something for Tommy at the end, but he put his head down, put in some really good laps at the end. All that put together, we finished where we finished. But I'm happy with the lap times, I'm happy we were able to kind of keep Neil in sight. American Honda Road Race Manager Ron Heben Yesterday was one of those days you quickly want to get over and look forward to today. Actually, I have to compliment the whole team, the riders and everybody, that they were able to put that behind them and came out this morning and we had a great first practice warm-up. And we're still not where we want to be, but there are signs that we are making some improvement. Neil got on the front row, which is a big plus. And we know that's where we need to be both with Neil and Miguel. So we go to Road Atlanta and test a couple of days and continue to try to march forward. And VIR, we've had some good luck there and we look forward to being there.Sunday Superbike: Saturday Superbike: Championship Standings: ENDS Post this story to: digg PRIVACY POLICY | HOME | RETURN TO TOP © 1997 - 2008 Hardscrabble Media LLC |
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