By Larry Lawrence

Josh Hayes won his second straight title earlier this month at New Jersey Motorsports Park. I looked in the record books and came up with some interesting stats on Hayes title and the series in general.

• At 36 Hayes is the third oldest AMA Superbike Champion (behind Reg Pridmore who was 39 when he won the championship in 1978 and Mat Mladin, who was 37 when he earned his last title in 2009)
• This marks Yamaha’s third AMA Superbike title and the first time the company has won the championship two years in a row.
• Yamaha, with three AMA Superbike championships, is now ranked fourth among manufacturers in series titles. Suzuki leads with 13, Kawasaki is second with nine and Honda third with 8. Ducati has two titles and BMW one.
• Hayes won three races this year. That gives him a total 17-career AMA Superbike wins. That means he is ranked first among current  AMA Superbike riders and is tied for fifth (with Nicky Hayden) on the all-time wins list.
• Blake Young won the most races in 2011 at seven, and he moved all the way up from 24th to a tie for 12th on the all-time AMA Superbike Wins list. Young is tied with Doug Polen.

We now have three years of DMG running the series. I thought it might be interesting to compare some stats from the last three years to the previous three.

• Total number of winners
  2006-2008 Three winners (Mladin, Spies, Zemke)
  2009-2011 Eight winners (B. Bostrom, Cardenas, T. Hayden, Hayes, Mladin, Pegram, Young, Zemke)
• Race wins by manufacturer
  2006-2008 Two (Honda 1, Suzuki 56)
  2009-2011 Three (Ducati 4, Suzuki 31, Yamaha 18)
• Factory vs. Independent team winners
  2006-2008 All 57 races won by factory teams.
  2009-2011 46 race won by factory teams, 7 by independent
• First-time race winners
  2006-2008 0
  2009-2011 4 (Cardenas, Hayes, T. Hayden, Young)