| The cold front that
moved into Fontana yesterday worsened ceasing all racing activities
until late into the afternoon. Rider Doug Chandler had no opportunity
to better his eighth place position from first qualifying as
the AMA altered today’s program eliminating the second
qualifying session, opting for a 20 minute warm-up - which Chandler
ran fastest - followed by the first race. Despite the second
row start, Chandler finished in fourth place, a position he
grasped early in the race and held firm till the end. Racing
was fast and furious up front and Chandler stayed right there,
fighting for a podium finish, until the remaining few laps.
“I was thinking we could get on the podium, a tall
order considering this is my first time on this track”,
said Chandler. It was also his first race on the Ducati, competing
against riders with additional testing time. “I really
feel we’ll do better tomorrow after we make a few small
changes. I felt comfortable with the pace early in the race,
but the front guys got me in the slower traffic, eventually
getting away. I really enjoyed the battle with Jamie [Hacking]
for the fourth place until he crashed.
“Today was a good start, but tomorrow will be better.”
Qualifying results
1 Anthony Gobert YAM 749
2 Aaron Yates SUZ 750 0.014
3 Nicky Hayden HON 999 6.531
4 DOUG CHANDLER DUC 998 10.484
5 Pascal Picotte DUC 998 44.783
6 Mathew Mladin SUZ 750 1’08.613
7 Lee Acree SUZ 750 1 lap
Race Results
HMC Ducati rider Doug Chandler was robbed of a podium finish
when a crash forced a red flag on lap 25 of the 28 lap race
at Fontana Speedway. Chandler came back from an early race
set-back to close a 5 second gap to a 0.6 second gap in three
laps, finishing in fourth position. The Californian was ready
to round up Mat Mladin and Eric Bostrom when red flag appeared,
but with 80% of the race complete, the AMA was justified to
refuse a restart.
Mat Mladin was watching his prey descending through his team
pit board and the reigning Champion was quoted several times
saying: "Doug would have probably smoked both of us.
Definitely me anyway."
"I feel pretty confident I would have got both of them,"
said Chandler. "I didn't expect to catch them so quickly
and with three laps left I decided to hold back and wait for
the last lap. Eric and Mat began to battle between themselves
so I thought I'd wait until they had nothing left and make
my move. Unfortunately we were short changed.
I had a big moment in the first lap and it took me a while
to recover, but the bike was handling so good that it was
easy to keep consistent fast laps and fortunately the traffic
was light making the going easier. Chandler was lapping in
the low 26s right to the last lap, less than a second off
Friday's fastest qualifying time. |
