Team M4 EMGO Suzuki continued to run up front on Saturday at Miller Motorsports Park in Tooele, UT. After setting the pace on Friday by topping the leaderboards in the Superstock and Supersport practices, team riders Geoff May and Michael Barnes locked up front row starting positions for Sunday’s 13-lap races.
May led the way, securing the third spot on the grid in both classes. He lapped the 3.048-mile circuit in 1:52.066 aboard his powerful GSX-R1000 in the Superstock class and then followed that up with a 1:55.569 lap time aboard his GSX-R600 in Supersport.
The Georgian is hoping to finally snap his season-long run of fourth place results with a podium result in Sunday’s Superstock race. He said, “The whole fourth-place thing has really got me motivated. I went to Road America and that had been my favorite track in the past. Those guys upped the pace like three seconds a lap from last year and it bummed me out getting another fourth. Maybe this will be the weekend we’ll get out of that fourth-place with big style.”
May currently lies second in the Supersport title chase and fourth in Superstock.
“I think at this point it could be anybody’s,” he said. “Even though the guys leading have a twenty-point or so margin, all it will take is for them to fall down once. It’s a long season and anything can happen. We’re just trying to be consistent and be up front everywhere we go. We want to be a threat and maybe pressure those guys into making a mistake.”
Michael Barnes will line up alongside May in the Supersport race, qualifying fourth fastest at 1:55.720 aboard his Pirelli-shod GSX-R600. The Floridian is aiming to claim his third consecutive podium result in the class.
On Saturday Barnes took his FX-spec GSX-R600 to seventh in the Formula Xtreme final. Barnes held on strong at the end of the 60k race, beating a competitor to the checkered flag for the position by under two tenths of a second.
Shea Fouchek qualified in the top twenty on Saturday. The Texan posted a best lap of 1:59.988 to grab the outside spot on the fifth row for Sunday’s race.
