SONOMA, Calif. (May 6) — The 33-point cushion GEICO Suzuki Martin Cardenas had built in the AMA Pro Daytona SportBike standings by winning three races in a row was reduced to just 12 after the 29-year-old Colombian crashed out of Sunday’s second race at the Great Clips West Coast Moto Jam.
Cardenas had been racing hard to get through some traffic at Infineon Raceway and was in second place and closing on race leader Jason Disalvo when he lost the front end of his GSX-R600 at high speed in Turn 8. Cardenas safely slid to a stop but his motorcycle was catapulted over the fencing and was damaged beyond repair. His DNF equated to a 22nd-place finish.
“My fault, 100 percent,” Cardenas said. “I just didn’t want to settle for second and I pushed it too hard. This was one of those times I should have been happy for second place but as a racer you always want more. I didn’t have the best start and fell several seconds behind. I made up a lot of ground and was closing the gap on Jason but just went too far.
“I’m perfectly fine. The leathers did their job and I am uninjured. This is not the result we wanted, obviously, but we did win yesterday’s race so the weekend had a share of success. We’ll be alright.”
After falling back to seventh early in the race, Cardenas picked off the riders in front of him one by one until moving past Tommy Hayden and Joey Pascarella and into second place at the midway point of the 22-lap main. At that point, the gap to Disalvo was slightly more than five seconds. Just before his crash in Lap 17, Cardenas had lowered the margin to three seconds.
Up next is the BigM Weekend, which takes place May 26-28 at Miller Motorsports Park Tooele, Utah, just outside Salt Lake City.
