American Nicky Hayden won his second straight US Grand Prix and his second MotoGP title of the year on Sunday, while defending world champion Valentino Rossi failed to finish for a third time this season.
Hayden beat Repsol Honda teammate Dani Pedrosa by 3.186 seconds, who finished second ahead of Italian Marco Melandri, a strong critic of the Laguna Seca Raceway track last year.
The victory extended Hayden's lead in the championship to 34 points over Pedrosa with Melandri in third, 44 points back.
"I swear it feels better this year than last year, if that's possible," Hayden said.
"Last year my bike was perfect all weekend, everything went great. But this year, I had a lot of problems," he said.
"There was a lot of pressure. I had the championship to think about. The crowd was cheering for me. My team worked so hard this weekend and it was so hot out there so it pays to be fit," Hayden said.
Rossi came up two laps short when his engine blew on lap 30.
Kenny Roberts moved to the front at the start, but polesitter Chris Vermeulen claimed the lead after half a lap.
Hayden moved up quickly, jumping from the outside of the first row to third by the time field returned to the start-finish line.
Hayden pushed Roberts for four laps, finally getting past on lap eight as the two Americans rolled left into Laguna Seca's famous Corkscrew.
"Man, Roberts is hard to pass," said Hayden, who immediately set out after Vermeulen. "I knew Chris was getting away and when I caught up to Kenny, it was now or never. I knew I had to get close to Chris and just chip away, chip away, chip away until I got him."
Hayden methodically closed on the Australian, trimming tenths of a second off of Vermeulen's lead every lap and sometimes gaining a half second or more.
By mid-race, Hayden had closed within 27-hundredths of a second and took the lead for good when Vermeulen went wide in turn three on lap 17.
Hayden widened his lead throughout the rest of the race while further back, Rossi -- who started 10th -- moved into fifth past Roberts on lap 19.
But Rossi's engine gave out for the second time this year with two laps to go and nearly changed the race, according to Hayden.
"I caught some oil in the last turn with two laps to go but managed to save it," Hayden said. "It was just hard work today. I didn't want to let the home team down. I'm here in front of my family and friends, and my team, they're all behind me."
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