In spite of suffering an unfortunate crash in Saturday’s qualifying, Yoshimura Suzuki’s Tommy Hayden finished a solid sixth place in Sunday’s AMA Supersport race at California Speedway in Fontana, Calif.  This result leaves Hayden in fourth place overall in the Supersport Championship points chase.

The previous day, Hayden was on his way to carding a front-row grid position, when the get-off resulted in his missing out on the last minutes of the session.  He walked away without serious injury but wound up on the third row in 10^th place. 

“I was on a really good lap,” said Hayden after the session.  “Everything with the Yoshimura Suzuki GSX-R600 was going good.  My foot accidentally touched the shift rod, which is connected to the electric shifter so it was almost like hitting the kill switch a couple of times.  I was leaned over and it high-sided me.”

In spite of this, Hayden did his best to recover for the race.  After being delayed by three red flags due to crashes, the 17-lap AMA Supersport race finally got underway in the late afternoon.  Still sore from his crash, Hayden rode a smooth and consistent race on his Yoshimura Suzuki GSX-R600 to finish in sixth place.

“After that last red flag, I got a good start,” said Hayden.  “That definitely helped my result.  I passed a few guys and kept my head down and the race went by pretty quick.  I thought I could get two more spots there at the end but it didn’t happen.  We got some good points so I’m pretty happy with that, especially considering the crash yesterday.  At least I’ve come out of this weekend with something to show for it and now it’s time to get ready for the Infineon race next month.”

All of Suzuki’s road race teams will return for round four of the AMA Superbike Series at Infineon Raceway in Sonoma, Calif., the weekend of May 18 - 20, 2007.