The Michael Jordan Motorsports team celebrated a podium finish for Ben Bostrom during a hot and steamy weekend at Barber Motorsports Park in Birmingham, Alabama while his team mate, Roger Lee Hayden, joined Bostrom in front-of-the-pack racing during the fifth stop of the 2011 AMA Pro National Guard Superbike Championship.
Bostrom’s second place was the MJM team’s best result of the season and was part of a Suzuki sweep of the podium in Saturday’s race, underlining the team’s significant progress in setting up their potent Suzuki GSX-R1000s.
After a red flag was thrown for a brief rain shower, Saturday’s race was restarted and Jordan Suzuki’s Ben Bostrom quickly moved into the lead pack. With eight laps remaining, Bostrom took over second place. On Sunday, Bostrom followed Hayden up to the lead pack and finished in a solid fifth place, which also moved him up to fifth place in the Championship.
“A huge thanks to the Jordan Motorsports boys,” commented Bostrom. “The results were not what I hoped, but the bike has really come together and now the rider has to step it up. We’ve struggled for a few events for sure and it’s nice to have fun riding again. We’ve got a few weeks off to ready ourselves for Mid-Ohio, where I’m sure the Jordan bike should be at the front. The bike is ready, the rider needs a little work and we will have a winner. I like Mid-Ohio and so do the Suzukis, so let’s see if we can sweep another podium in three weeks.”
In Saturday’s red flag-interrupted race, National Guard Jordan Suzuki rider Roger Lee Hayden ran with the leaders in the dry, then again moved to the front and led the race on the wet track before sliding back to a sixth-place finish. On Sunday, Hayden used his front-row starting position to get away with the leaders, running with them in fourth place until he crashed, unhurt, in turn one at the start of lap 14. Hayden remains in seventh place in the championship points race.
“We qualified on the front row and had a pretty good pace going before the red flag,” said Hayden about Saturday’s race. “When the rain came, I just didn’t have a good feeling with the rain tyres. In Sunday’s race, I got a decent start and was right there with the top three guys and then I made a huge mistake. I went back an extra gear for turn six and had to run through the grass, and I fell back to sixth. I put my head down and ran the leaders down, caught them with seven laps to go, and made a mistake going into turn one. The back end came around on me and that was the end of my race. Hats off to the team; they’re really working hard and every weekend is getting better.”
The Michael Jordan Motorsports team’s next event of the 2011 AMA Pro National Guard Superbike Championship series is at the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course in Lexington, Ohio on July 8-10th.
