Reigning AMA Superbike Champion Ben Spies was the fastest rider as a rain-interrupted, two-day AMA team test ended Thursday at California Speedway, in Fontana, California. Riding his 2007 Yoshimura Suzuki GSX-R1000 on 2006-spec Dunlop race tires, Spies lapped the 2.36-mile, 21-turn infield road course in 1:24.22, which was faster than his fastest lap (1:24.441) en route to winning both races at California Speedway in 2006. “I never went out there trying to do a fast lap,” Spies told Roadracingworld.com. “We were just trying new stuff, found a couple of things that were good and found a couple of things that weren’t good. We’ve got a bunch more stuff to test next week, especially with the traction control stuff. I’m happy with everything. The bike is working pretty good, and I feel like I’m riding pretty good right now.” While Spies worked mainly with the rear suspension on his new bike, six-time AMA Superbike Champion Mat Mladin and his crew focused more on learning the Mitsubishi traction control system on their new GSX-R1000. Mladin’s best effort Thursday was a 1:24.75, just off his fastest lap from the 2006 race, a 1:24.539. Tommy Hayden again made it three Yoshimura Suzuki GSX-R1000 Superbikes at the top with his 1:25.20 even though he is new to Suzuki and his crew, and is not 100% physically. Tommy Hayden’s youngest brother Roger Hayden lapped the course in 1:25.70 Thursday while using a modified ZX-10R chassis he shared with his new Monster Kawasaki teammate Jamie Hacking (1:26.00) and Superbike veteran and guest tester Akira Yanagawa. Both Roger Hayden and Hacking deemed the new chassis to be a huge improvement. Roger Hayden also spent some time getting more familiar with his ZX-6R Supersport bike, on which he posted the fastest Supersport lap of the day, a 1:27.90. Hacking only rode his Superbike Thursday. Eric Bostrom was the fastest Yamaha rider with a 1:25.98 on his YZF-R1 Superbike. He was marginally faster than his teammate Jason DiSalvo, who turned a 1:26.05 on his Superbike after walking away from a harmless lowside crash halfway through the day. The crash was DiSalvo’s second of the test, as suffered a nasty highside crash on Tuesday. Graves Motorsports Yamaha’s Ben Bostrom, Eric Bostrom’s older brother, matched DiSalvo’s lap time on his Superstock YZF-R1 and happily stated the bike had plenty of time left in it. At one point of the test, the Bostrom brothers swapped bikes to compare feedback. The brothers both said each bike had strong points that they wish they could combine into their own bike. With the computer glitches that hindered him on Tuesday fixed, Miguel Duhamel posted a best time of 1:25.71 on his 2007-spec American Honda CBR1000RR Superbike. The French-Canadian also worked on the CBR600RR Formula Xtreme machine he will race at Daytona, posting a 1:28.00. The fastest Formula Xtreme tester Thursday was defending class Champion Josh Hayes, who turned a 1:26.88 on his Parts Unlimited Pro Honda Oils Erion Honda CBR600RR. Over one hour of track time was lost Thursday when Tom Sharp, driver of the Attack Kawasaki race transporter, fell out of the passenger seat of a moving utility vehicle in the paddock and suffered a serious head injury. Sharp was unconscious and bleeding from the head when he was transported to a local hospital by the only ambulance in attendance at the test. The test was forced to shut down until the ambulance returned to the track 75 minutes later. After Wednesday was washed out by overnight rains and a track that refused to dry, weather also played a factor on Thursday. The day started with cold temperatures and an overcast sky, which gave way to warmer temperatures and some sun through the middle of the day. In the afternoon, however, the temperature dropped sharply, and few riders improved their best lap times in the final hours of the test. American Honda, Monster Kawasaki, Attack Kawasaki, factory Yamaha and Graves Motorsports Yamaha are scheduled to test next week at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca, while Yoshimura Suzuki will return to California Speedway for two more days of testing next week. Yoshimura Suzuki expects Parts Unlimited Pro Honda Oils Erion Honda and Michael Jordan Motorsports Suzuki to join them. Thursday’s Unofficial Best Times of the Test (as supplied by each rider’s Crew Chief): 1. Ben Spies (Suz GSX-R1000), 1:24.22, Superbike 2. Mat Mladin (Suz GSX-R1000), 1:24.75, Superbike 3. Tommy Hayden (Suz GSX-R1000), 1:25.20, Superbike 4. Jamie Hacking (Kaw ZX-10R), 1:25.50, Superbike 5. Roger Hayden (Kaw ZX-10R), 1:25.70, Superbike 6. Miguel Duhamel (Hon CBR1000RR), 1:25.71, Superbike 7. Eric Bostrom (Yam YZF-R1), 1:25.98, Superbike 8. Jason DiSalvo (Yam YZF-R1), 1:26.05, Superbike 9. Ben Bostrom (Yam YZF-R1), 1:26.05, Superstock 10. Jake Zemke (Hon CBR1000RR), 1:26.49, Superbike 11. Josh Hayes (Hon CBR600RR), 1:26.88, Formula Xtreme 12. Aaron Gobert (Hon CBR600RR), 1:27.60, Formula Xtreme 13. James Ellison (Hon CBR1000RR), 1:27.82, Superbike 14. Roger Hayden (Kaw ZX-6R), 1:27.90, Supersport 15. Miguel Duhamel (Hon CBR600RR), 1:28.00, Formula Xtreme 16. Aaron Gobert (Hon CBR600RR), 1:28.11, Supersport 17. Ben Attard (Kaw ZX-6R), 1:28.15, Formula Xtreme 18. Josh Hayes (Hon CBR600RR), 1:28.20, Supersport 19. Josh Herrin (Yam YZF-R6), 1:29.72, Supersport 20. Tommy Hayden (Suz GSX-R600), 1:30.25, Supersport Update: Monster Kawasaki’s Jamie Hacking called Roadracingworld.com after post time to say that he recorded several 1:25 lap times, including a 1:25.50, on his on-board lap timer, faster than the 1:26.00 his Crew Chief originally reported to Roadracingworld.com. The unofficial times reported by Roadracingworld.com were all sourced from riders’ Crew Chiefs. Most Crew Chiefs provided lap times obtained with hand-held stop watches while using the start/finish line on the front straightaway as a stop/start point. The lap times recorded by the riders’ on-board lap timers start/stop at a timing beacon located on the infield straightaway. As a result, those lap times may be different than the times recorded by their Crew Chiefs.