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What's this?The 23-year-old Texan knows he's going to need a string of first-place finishes -- including and beyond this weekend's Kawasaki AMA Superbike Showdown -- to catch teammate and points leader Mat Mladin in the Superbike standings.
After this season, it appears he'll bolt for the world's premier motorcycle racing series, MotoGP.
Right now, though, all Spies says he is thinking of is winning a pair of races at Infineon Raceway in what may be his final competitive appearance at the 2.22-mile road course. Practice and qualifying begins today with the first of two Superbike races on Saturday at 3:25 p.m. Sunday's race is at 3 p.m.
"It's early in the season and a lot of stuff can still happen," said Spies, a five-time winner in Sonoma, including two victories in Superbike. "It's time to get it on, make up some points and try to have a couple of good races."
After finishing a distant second to Mladin in both Superbike races at Infineon last year, Spies went on to win four of the next five events. Mladin then won six straight races before Spies edged the Australian in the season-ending event at Laguna Seca to secure the championship by just one point.
But Spies has some work to do if he wants to win a third straight Superbike season title.
An 11th-place finish in April in the first of two races at Barber Motorsports Park (Ala.), where he crashed midway through the race, put him 24 points back of Mladin. A
"(My Suzuki) team was a little upset that I actually stayed out and rode (in the first race) because the bike wasn't too safe to ride," Spies said. "But I needed points, and that's what I told them. I said, 'Hey, that's my choice.' And I got it done."
Spies, now 20 points out of first place, comes into Sonoma with momentum after winning two Superbike races in Fontana last month. In the second race, Spies edged Mladin by 0.011 seconds in one of the closest races in recent AMA road racing history.
Considering their shared dominance in Superbike since the start of the 2006 season, it's easy to see why the rivalry between Spies and Mladin is the main story line before each stop on the AMA circuit.
But while their relationship has been icy at times, there's a mutual respect between Spies and the 36-year-old Mladin as they've pushed each other to improve.
"He knows I'm not going to give him an inch, and I wouldn't expect anything (else) from him," Mladin said.
"Right now he trying to make me better as a rider for my career, and I'm trying to bring out the best in him," Spies said. "We're kind of the perfect dose for each other. It's good, we're having fun."
How long that rivalry lasts is anyone's guess. Reports have Spies riding a Suzuki in MotoGP next season, which has been one of his goals since his professional career began in 2000.
On Wednesday, Spies confirmed he'll be a wild-card rider for Suzuki in MotoGP races at Laguna Seca on July 20 and Indianapolis on Sept. 14, and run a test at Indianapolis this summer.
But all that's too far in the future for a man whose concentrating on grabbing the checkered flag Saturday and Sunday.
"We need to turn around what happened last year, and this has always been a good track for me," Spies said "We're hoping to change all of the fortunes and change a bunch of stuff from last year. We need to be the ones winning races."
Contact Curtis Pashelka at cpashelka@bayareanewsgroup.com.
The Spies File
Results for AMA Superbike racer Ben Spies at Infineon Raceway in recent years.
