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Stiggy Racing Honda>> Haslam's brightens up Monza weekend for Stiggy Team

May 13 2009

World Superbike Championship
Stiggy Racing Honda

Round 05 Monza
Sunday, May 10th
Superbike Races

Leon Haslam took a risk in the Superpole Qualifying yesterday, by opting for a soft race tyre, and unexpectedly found himself pushed out of the first session. Starting from a fifth row on the grid, it seemed hard to capitalise on the potential of the Stiggy Superbike on raceday, but Haslam proved he can run the pace, and dug deep in both Superbike races today.

The first Superbike race was red flagged in the early seconds after a pile-up in the first chicane took no less than six riders down. After a 30 minute delay, the race was re-started and Fabrizio, Spies and Haga immediately compiled a leading group. After Neukirchner was unable to restart the race due to injury, Haslam moved up to 16th on the grid and came through the first lap in 13th. He gradually worked his way forward through the field, but had to retire, due to an unexpected technical problem, on the ultimate lap of the race.

After a less than perfect start in the second race, Haslam once again pushed hard to make his way to the front, and claimed no less than 11 positions in the 18 lap race. His performance highlighted a tough weekend for the Stiggy Racing Team, as he converted his 16th position at the lights to a superb seventh place at the flag.

American Formula Extreme Champion Jake Zemke stepped in to replace the injured John Hopkins, and gave it his all in his first World Superbike race. He struggled to adapt to the Stiggy Racing Honda machine on the Pirelli tyres through qualifying. Zemke claimed 18th place in race one, and took 20th in the second race in his maiden appearance for the team.

Leon Haslam, Race 1 - DNF, Race 2 - 7th :
" I went out on my second bike today, which I hadn't been riding all weekend, and took a bit of a gamble with it. We had some issues with the suspension, but we decided to stay with the set up we used in Assen. It took me a few laps to get into it, but I was able to run a good pace. The pace in the end of the race was definitely good enough for a place on the rostrum. It was a tough weekend, with bad qualifying results and a disappointing first race. To finish the second race in seventh race place is a good enough result, I am pretty happy ".

Jake Zemke, Race 1 - 18th, Race 2 - 20th:
" It is definitely not the weekend that I wanted to have. I want to thank the team for all the hard work they put. They bent over backwards to get to a point were I was happy on the bike, but we just never got there. I struggled to get the bike to turn, and we failed to find the solution in such short time. My team did a great job, but I just didn't bring the bike to a place where we could all be satisfied. Race one went a lot better then race two, we made some changes and thought they would help us, but they didn't, and then the ride through penalty for cutting the chicane just finished the race for me.

Johan Stigefelt, Teammanager:
" It has been such an unfortunate weekend for us here in Monza. Leon was running for seventh when his bike stopped due to a technical problem, with just one lap to go. Jake was here to learn, but he is a bit disappointed he struggled to get further up. The bike and the team are capable of doing so, but we know it was hard for him to just come here and race for a top 15 place.

Leon's seventh place in race two was a good result. He has shown again that he can run the same lap times as the front runners, but from his starting position on the fifth row combined with a bad start, it was hard to go forward. If it wasn't for that, I am sure he would have been able to finish in the top 3 again ".

Results Race 1:
1 Fabrizio
2 Haga
3 Kiyonari
18 Jake Zemke
DNF Leon Haslam

Results Race 2:
1 Spies
2 Fabrizio
3 Kiyonari
7 Haslam
10 Jake Zemke

Stiggy Honda is sponsored by Hotbodies Racing and uses our windscreens on all of their bikes. Hotbodies Racing specializes in manufacturing high-performance parts for high-performance sportbikes, and is the North American distribution of KR Tuned performance parts. Hotbodies Racing is the market leader in Undertails, Huggers, Windscreens, Flush-Mount Signals, Megaphone Exhausts and full-race Bodywork. Hotbodies Racing supports the sport with sponsorship around the world and encourages dealer and distributor inquiries. For more information visit: www.HOTBODIESRACING.com.