Honda's Nicky Hayden could only muster a second row starting slot in Saturday's qualifying session. His bike was visibly struggling to make the turns, despite his best efforts to control the Japanese twin.
"Miguel and I are both struggling with grip. Tomorrow we'll just do the best we can to come up with something else,' shrugged the Honda factory rider. "We're way behind at this point."

Hayden indicated that the bike lacked entry grip turning into the corners.

The key to setting a good lap time at PPIR is getting through the fast turn one. This bend leads the riders off the banking, across a transition, and into the unbanked infield. The machines run approach the turn from the banking, where they run inches from the NASCAR wall.

As the Superbikes enter the fast turn one at PPIR, some hit the rev limiter hard, and with t he bowl atmosphere, the sound resonates. The fans are treated to a sound similar to a machine gun blast. "It helps settle the bike really," said Mat Mladin. "It cuts the power."

The Ducati 996 doesn't have easily adjustable internal ratios. Their riders must make their gearing changes with the sprockets. We asked John Kocinski if the Ducati was at peak revs. "It's not hitting the rev limiter. A lot of people probably do. The four cylinder guys can change their internal ratios. We can't. It's not the optimum set-up, but it's a way around."

Watching the Superbikes, it's obvious that some of the bikes are more comfortable in the short turns than others. The Hondas seem to have trouble tipping the bike over in a way that gives the rider confidence. Both DuHamel and Hayden looked shaky at times in practice and qualifying.

Sources at the track say the AMA Superbike series outdraws the IRL at Pikes.

Steve Rapp lead the final qualifying session for a considerable time. "I ended up in my usual spot-5th. It's not bad, but I've been qualifying fifth for a while. The bike is all right. We're going to try one more thing in the warm-up and decide from there," said Rapp.

Anthony Gobert was in attendance at the race today with his girlfriend Suni.

Mat Mladin was smiling and looking very relaxed after qualifying. He is on the cusp of his second AMA Superbike championship. "No worries," said Mat.

Kurtis Roberts has a new helmet from Arai. It comes straight from Japan and is a special prototype Signa-GT model. Roberts won his second Formula Xtreme championship moments ago. Despite only needing to finish 14th, Kurtis was smoking the tire and fighting through the backmarkers trying to win the race. He fought off Grant Lopez, despite the fact that Lopez was faster in certain sections. After the two slammed together going into turn 1, Roberts eased up to finish second.

250 heat races:

Heat One 1. M. Barnes 2. N. Ienatsch 3. P. Melnecic 4. E. Sorbo 5. T. Wadsworth

Heat Two 1. D. King 2. C. Ulrich 3. R. Oliver 4. G. Esser 5. T. Piz

Rich had a problem with his machine in the last laps.