From a press release issued by Mat Mladin Motorsports:

Virginia International Raceway
Alton, Virginia, USA

Test Session Report

NEVER TO LATE TO TEST FOR MLADIN

With the AMA Chevy Trucks US Superbike Championship in the middle of a five-week break in proceedings, current points leader Mat Mladin has not been taking things easy preferring instead to take to the track and undertake a number of important test sessions.

Last week Mladin and his close knit Yoshimura Suzuki team tested at the new Barber Motorsports Park in Alabama and have just completed their latest test at Virginia International Raceway, host of the penultimate round of the championship on August 30 & 31. Next week the team will head to Florida to test on the ultra fast banking of Daytona International Speedway.

This week’s three-day test proved to be yet another important and crucial test for Mladin and his Yoshimura Suzuki GSX-R1000 Superbike. Always enjoying the opportunity to further develop his machine, Mladin was very happy with the results gained from the test.

” It was a definitely worthwhile test for us that’s for sure,” said Mladin. “We got through a lot of stuff along with a lot of tyres that Dunlop wanted us to test and it all went very well. I’m glad we made the effort to get here, especially after our earlier planned test here was washed out a few weeks ago. We had a few rain interruptions over the three days, but essentially it was good for us and we got in a lot of track time. Dunlop did bring a few different things out for us to try which is again a positive sign to show their support for us this year, while we also had a few other things on the bike that we wanted to test and did so.

“When you do all of the testing it seems to get to a point where you think, geez why do we have to do all of this testing, but you’ve always got to do it when you get a chance. That’s why we are here and that’s why we are heading to Daytona next week, where that will give us a start for next March’s race.”

Virginia is one of the few circuits on the championship trail where Mladin has failed to score a race win and where he was beaten by the narrowest of margins at the corresponding round last year. Following this week’s test, he will feel a lot more comfortable heading to VIR.

“When you compare the times from last year we’re looking pretty good. Last year I raced for the win here and got pipped on the line and we know the lap times that we did last year and we now know the ones we have done this year, so things a looking pretty good.”

With a total of nine wins from fourteen races this year, Mladin heads to Virginia leading the championship with a 33-point advantage over teammate Aaron Yates. His nine victories this year leaves him one shy of the all-time AMA season race win record of ten, while he has further extended his own record of AMA career Pole Positions with a total of 30, six of which have been scored this season so far.

2003 AMA Chevy Trucks US Superbike Championship (points after 14 of 18 rounds)
1. M Mladin (431); 2. A Yates (398), 3. B Bostrom (376); 4. E Bostrom (350); 5. K Roberts (349), 6. M DuHamel (332); 7. J Pridmore (315); 8. S Higbee (299), 9. V Haskovec (221), 10. J Szoke (212).