Aprilia shows their potential in Salt Lake City The American sun struggled to shine through for the international participants and spectators at the American round of the World Superbike Championship in Salt Lake City. Max Biaggi on board his Aprilia RSV4 Factory began the weekend well, by placing his RSV4 onto the first position of the grid in the provisional qualifying session on the Friday afternoon. However during the Pole Position Session on Saturday Max was relegated to 16th due to a wet track and a fall, team mate Shinya Nakano was able to qualify in tenth position. As the lights went out to mark the commencement of race one, it was Spies who took the home advantage and led into the first corner followed closely by Naknao and Ryuichi Kiyonari. By the end of lap one the field had broken into three distinct groups with Carlos Checa, Michele Fabrizio, Noriyuki Haga, Broc Parkes and Biaggi trying to catch the likes of Spies and Nakano. By lap five Checa was able to catch Nakano and so the battle for the third position began, the battle came to an abrupt end when on the sixth lap Checa cut in front of Nakano forcing him to brake hard which resulted in his steering freezing and Nakano running off the track before falling, forcing him to retire from the race. On the same lap Karl Muggeridge suffered a serious fall forcing the officials to stop the race, once the track was cleared the second heat of race one began ( the results would be determined from an aggregate time schedual). It was Spies who started well again followed by Kiyonari, Checa, Rae, Parkes and Biaggi who all tried their best to catch up with the American rider, but they were unable to do so as Kiyonari suffered from technical difficulty and as a result lost several positions, whilst Rea, Biaggi and Fabrizio failed to match the American pace at his home circuit. With the first two podium positions determined a battle began between Rea and Fabrizio for the third step on the podium and between Biaggi and Kiyonari for the two remaining positions. Rea finished in third place with more than two-tenths of a second advantage over Fabrizio whilst Biaggi crossed the line in fifth place. Between Race One and Race Two the grey clouds again began to gather leaving teams to look to the sky in search of a tyre choice. Spies started well and immediately broke away with only Fabrizio and Checa able to match his pace. With Checa falling on the fourth lap Rea, Biaggi, Haslam and Kiyonari were left to battle Fabrizio for the second step of the podium. By midway through the race it was Nakano and Smrz who were battling for the last position on the podium. With only two laps to go, the entertainment could be found towards the front with Rea, Haslam and Biaggi continuing their conquest for third position, on the last lap Haslam fell which blocked Biaggi and therefore handed the podium position to Rea. Biaggi once again crossed the line in fourth position whilst Nakano was able to cross the line in seventh position just 19 seconds behind Spies. Again Biaggi was able to bring his RSV4 to the foot of the podium, confirming the excellent potential of Noale’s four-cylinder motorcycle, despite its young age.