Current Championship leader Ben Spies earned provisional pole position with a new lap record today during AMA Superbike qualifying at California Speedway, in Fontana, California. Riding his Yoshimura Suzuki GSX-R1000 with a “soft” rear Dunlop, the young Texan lapped the 2.3-mile, 21-turn infield road course in 1:23.374, faster than Mat Mladin’s previous record time, 1:23.612. “I guess it was a good lap,” said Spies, who said he was suffering from the effects of a head cold. “We made a couple of mistakes. I told my guys a perfect lap was going to be a 1:22.9. If you can get that I don’t know, and how the weather is going to be tomorrow I’m not sure. We’ll see. We did that on a soft tire, (but) we saved one. “It should be good. We did 1:23.9 on a race tire we’re probably gonna be racing on, even if it gets hot. So it was a good day. We’ve got a really good set-up. We’ll fine tune the bike a little bit, but it’s pretty close. “Every since this morning’s practice it seems like every class has been pretty quick. I told the guys after we did low 1:24s this morning, ‘The track’s fast, and we need to take that into consideration.’ I thought we would dedicate this to a qualifying session and not a race time session. We went ahead and did some laps on race tires and only used one soft tire. Whether it’s going to be this good tomorrow or not, we don’t know. If somebody decides to go faster we’ve got a soft tire to match it, so it should be good.” Six-time and defending AMA Superbike Champion Mladin was second-fastest with a time of 1:23.613 in the session on his GSX-R1000. American Honda’s Jake Zemke earned the third spot on the provisional front row with a lap of 1:23.956 on his CBR1000RR, while former Superbike World Champion Neil Hodgson turned the fourth-fastest lap time, 1:24.432, on his Parts Unlimited Ducati 999. Final qualifying for the Suzuki Superbike Challenge at California Speedway will take place Saturday at 9:50 a.m., followed by the first of two Superbike races at 3:50 p.m. Saturday afternoon. AMA Superbike Championship California Speedway Fontana, California April 28 Friday’s Provisional Qualifying Results: 1. Ben Spies (Suz GSX-R1000) 1:23.374 2. Mat Mladin (Suz GSX-R1000) 1:23.613 3. Jake Zemke (Hon CBR1000RR) 1:23.956 4. Neil Hodgson (Duc 999F06) 1:24.432 5. Aaron Yates (Suz GSX-R1000) 1:24.481 6. Ben Bostrom (Duc 999F06) 1:24.514 7. Miguel Duhamel (Hon CBR1000RR) 1:25.212 8. Tommy Hayden (Kaw ZX-10R) 1:25.362 9. Jake Holden (Suz GSX-R1000) 1:25.706 10. Larry Pegram (Hon CBR1000RR) 1:26.009 11. Matt Lynn (Suz GSX-R1000) 1:26.011 12. Steve Rapp (Suz GSX-R1000) 1:26.064 13. Jason Curtis (Suz GSX-R1000) 1:26.250 14. Eric Wood (Suz GSX-R1000) 1:26.397 15. Marty Craggill (Suz GSX-R1000) 1:26.845 16. Jason Perez (Yam YZF-R1) 1:27.052 17. Doug Chandler (Kaw ZX-10R) 1:27.170 18. Brad Hendry (Suz GSX-R1000) 1:27.239 19. Cory West (Suz GSX-R1000) 1:27.426 20. Jason Pridmore (Suz GSX-R1000) 1:27.515 21. Mark Ledesma (Hon CBR1000RR) 1:27.780 22. Fernando Amantini (Kaw ZX-10R) 1:28.856 23. David Bell (Suz GSX-R1000) 1:29.138 24. Corey Eaton (Suz GSX-R1000) 1:29.536 25. Martin Szwarc (Suz GSX-R1000) 1:30.798 26. Marco Martinez (Suz GSX-R1000) 1:31.279 27. Reno Karimian (Suz GSX-R1000) 1:31.525 28. C.R. Gittere (Suz GSX-R1000) 1:31.556 29. Mark Simon (Suz GSX-R1000) 1:31.748 30. Ricardo Sune Falcon (Kaw ZX-10R) 1:32.376 31. David Lambert (Kaw ZX-10R) 1:33.102 32. James Kerker (Hon CBR1000RR) 1:33.247 33. Johnny Rock Page (Suz GSX-R1000) 1:33.441 More, from a press release issued by Team Suzuki: Ben Spies set a new lap record in qualifying for the Fontana AMA Superbike double-header in California this weekend. The Yoshimura GSX-R1000-mounted Texan fended off team mate Mat Mladin throughout this afternoon’s 40-minute qualifier with a best lap of 1:23.374, which toppled Mladin’s 2005 record of 1:23.612. Said Spies, who was suffering a severe head cold: “It’s kind of crazy that we broke the track record because it feels like this is a pretty tight track and everything’s happening so slow. “Yesterday I wouldn’t have been able to do that and would have been unable to ride. I made a big change overnight and hopefully we’ll keep going, because we’re definitely not 100%.” Third Yoshimura team rider Aaron Yates put his GSX-R1000 on the second row one place ahead of Ducati Austin’s Ben Bostrom.