Hayes Wins Supersport & FX
4/24/2007
Erion Honda's Josh Hayes completed a sweep of the 600cc classes at Barber Motorsports Park by adding the Pro Honda Oils Supersport victory to the Formula Xtreme race he'd won on Saturday.
"I've been waiting for a weekend like this for a lot of years," Hayes said after beating teen-ager Josh Herrin by 3.965 seconds for his first ever Supersport win. After thanking Honda and Dunlop he added, "I needed it. It's great for my confidence and hopefully we're going to keep going like this."
The win was not only Hayes' first in Supersport competition but also the first for the new Honda CBR600RR, which was humbled by the Kawasakis in the Daytona seasonopeners.
The first attempt to run the race almost ended in tragedy. The race was red-flagged when Monster Kawasaki's Jamie Hacking low-sided in the final left-hander onto the front straight. As he was sliding, the rear tire caught, pitching Hacking over the front of the ZX-6RR. Team M4 EMGO Suzuki's Geoff May had nowhere to go and centerpunched the fallen motorcycle, both he and the GSX-R600 tumbling down the straightaway.
Hacking, who was second when he crashed, stood up and faced traffic. Amazingly, he wasn't hit. And May was able to walk away under his own power.
The race was re-started, without May or Hacking, and it was all Hayes. The Mississippian eased away at first, then sped to what looked like an easy win.
Behind him were several furious fights for position. The first was over second and it went, in the end, to Graves Motorsports Yamaha's Herrin.
Starting from the fourth lap, Herrin moved quickly to the front and took second from Attack Kawasaki's Steve Rapp with an inside move on the eighth of 17 laps. Rapp came back at him, but the teen-ager hung on for second. Rapp was a close third.
The battle for fourth went to Erion Honda's Aaron Gobert over the Hayden brothers, Roger Lee on the Monster Kawasaki and Tommy on the Yoshimura Suzuki. Gobert lost fourth to Roger Lee on the final lap, and nearly lost fifth. But a forceful move at in the left-hander at the end of the back straight put him in fourth. Roger Lee followed, then Tommy.
Supersport:
- Josh Hayes - Parts Unlimited
- Josh Herrin
- Steve Rapp
- Aaron Gobert - Parts Unlimited
- Roger Lee Hayden