Cardenas Over Zemke at Road America

Henny Ray Abrams | June 7, 2009

M4 Suzuki’s Martin Cardenas won his sixth race of the season by outrunning Erion Honda’s Jake Zemke on the run to the flag in the Daytona SportBike race at Road America in Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin.Cardenas led the first six laps before Zemke, who was lapping a second faster than anyone, took over the lead just after the pair had crossed the start-finish line on lap seven.Zemke set the pace for the second half of the race, but his lap times weren’t as good as during his run to the front and Cardenas was able to hang on. For the next five laps, the lead across the stripe was rarely more than a quarter second.Cardenas passed Zemke for the lead entering turn one on the final lap, with Zemke re-taking it going into the downhill left hand turn five. Then Cardenas slipped up the inside of Zemke into the left hand kink. As the pair drove out, Zemke had a slight edge and kept it through the next sequence of corners and into turn 12, the final right leading onto the front straight.Zemke went to the right and Cardenas to the left for the run up the hill to the flag and beat him to the stripe by .104 secs. Cardenas’s teammate Jason DiSalvo was third, 8.583 secs. back.Then came Saturday’s winner Chris Peris (Erion Honda) in front of Danny Eslick, the first of three Buells. He was followed by Latus Motors’ Taylor Knapp, at two seconds, and Geico Insurance/RMR Buell’s Michael Barnes 3.5 secs. later.Barnes edged out Factory Aprilia Millennium Technology’s Chaz Davies, while Monster Energy Attack Kawasaki’s Jamie Hacking was ninth.Cardenas extended his championship lead over Hacking to 51 points, 255 to 204 after 11 of 20 races.Daytona SportBike:

1. Martin Cardenas (Suzuki)

2. Jake Zemke (Honda)

3. Jason DiSalvo (Suzuki)

4. Chris Peris (Honda)

5. Danny Eslick (Buell)

6. Taylor Knapp (Buell)

7. Michael Barnes (Buell)

8. Chaz Davies (Aprilia)

9. Jamie Hacking (Kawasaki)

10. Chris Fillmore (Yamaha)