(NEWS RELEASE)

M4 Suzuki put forth an extremely successful combined effort to complete out the AMA Pro Road Racing weekend at Road America on Sunday, adding to their 2011 season trophy haul.

Dane Westby was a prominent player in the day’s incredible Daytona SportBike final, running up front and occasionally leading a seven-rider train for victory in the dramatic, twice-red flagged race.

Westby repeatedly charged up multiple positions on the brakes, courageously slicing past his rivals over and over again as the SportBike stars jockeyed for position in the thrilling pack war.

The Oklahoman put his GSX-R600 into the lead to open the final lap and — after multiple last-lap position changes — locked down a podium finish. Dane crossed the line with a hard-fought third-place finish only 0.303 seconds behind the win.

“I knew they were going to come back by — there was a lot of drafting going on,” Westby said. “I just tried to set up the brakes and when that white flag came out and I was leading, it honestly surprised me a little bit. There was some really close racing but everything worked out great.”

Meanwhile, Santiago Villa repeated yesterday’s strong run to 11th place in the SportBike contest. The Colombian diced in a drafting battle for 9th position and ultimately came up just 0.063 seconds short of securing a top-ten result of his own.

Superbike star Martin Cardenas backed up his Saturday fourth with another fourth on Sunday but came away much more satisfied with today’s effort.

The reigning Daytona SportBike champ manhandled his GSX-R1000 and willed it forward, giving chase to the factory bikes ahead of him. Cardenas tracked down the works Suzukis and looked set to enter the scrap for second position but lost the draft when he ran wide in Turn 5 with just a few laps remaining.

Martin immediately got back on the pace and started clawing his way back towards the front but simply ran out of time.

“Today was much better,” Martin confirmed. “I finished fourth again but it was a different type of fourth. I was much closer to the front guys so I’m much happier today.

“I ran wide just after catching those guys and from that point on it was very difficult. I tried to push again but it seemed like I was just maintaining the gap. I was gaining a little bit and pushed as hard as I could but fourth was the best we could do today. I’ll try to keep improving and maybe get on the box again soon.”

M4 Suzuki will next head to Barber Motorsports Park on June 17-19, the scene Cardenas and the team’s double victory and SportBike championship triumph of one year ago.