Photo: © 2011 Jensen Beeler / Asphalt & Rubber – Creative Commons – Attribution 3.0

After a wildcard entry at the season opener on Phillip Island, Josh Waters will again ride a Yoshimura Suzuki in the World Superbike series, with the Australian and team entering this weekend’s round at Miller Motorsports Park . Though the entry had long been announced, as A&R reported back in early March, there was some question after last season’s lack of racing that the team would actually make it to America.

In fact, the Japanese team is also planning to enter Waters in the Suzuka 8 Hour endurance race along with the possibility of other WSBK wild card entries in 2011. Though he had a poor showing in Phillip Island, “Josh showed he has the potential,” explained team owner Fujio Yoshimura in March, “I have told him we’d like him to ride again in America at Miller Motorsports Park. It’s a good start for the team and Josh and we will both get better.”

Asphalt & Rubber will be coming to live from Miller Motorsports Park this Memorial Day weekend, covering the BigM weeked that is World Superbike‘s sole stop on American soil, along with AMA Pro Racing. Located 30 miles outside of Salt Lake City, the MMP facility is set against the picturesque backdrop of the Wasatch and Oquirrh mountain ranges. If the racing is just half as good as the setting, we should be in for a great long weekend. We’ll be updating this post with our live Twitter feed and photo stream, so check back often.

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Photos from Monday at Miller Motorsports Park:

Despite his perennially upbeat demeanor on Twitter, Chris Vermeulen’s recovery continues to progress slowly. The factory Kawasaki rider, who has yet to complete a race in the 2011 World Superbike season, will remain in Europe while teammates Joan Lascorz and Tom Sykes travel to this weekend’s race at Miller Motorsports Park in Utah.Vermeulen has been attending recent races in Europe and participating in practice and qualifying sessions, but an off at Monza tore a hole in his elbow and added to the Australian’s injuries.

Vermeulen will test for the team at Motorland Aragon early next month, with a plan to return to racing at Misano for the June 12th weekend. “It is disappointing to not race in America but my injuries are still healing. The good thing is they are improving,” said Vermeulen.

With World Superbike coming to Miller Motorsports Park next weekend, many eyes are on reigning champ Max Biaggi. Will Max be able to recover from a rocky season’s start to keep the title in Aprilia’s trophy case? Or will a charging Carlos Checa and upstart Marco Melandri continue to show no respect for Max’s greatness? Since his early days as a fantastic 250cc two-stroke rider, Max has had his share of disrespectful rivals.

Last year he, and the dominant Aprilia, added another star to his dorsal display of world titles. But in 2009 he ran into some trouble with Ben Spies and Noriyuki Haga. You can never fault Max for not trying hard enough–in qualifying Max held onto the throttle as he dumped the RSV4 in the Attitudes, though Spies would win both races that weekend. Whether you love him or hate him, Max gives it all he’s got.

Josh Waters will continue to race for Yoshimura Suzuki in 2011, wild carding at the Miller Motorsports Park World Superbike round, and also making an appearance at the Suzuka 8 Hour Endurance Race. “Josh showed he has the potential,” explained team owner Fujio Yoshimura, “I have told him we’d like him to ride again in America at Miller Motorsports Park. It’s a good start for the team and Josh and we will both get better.”

With Yoshimura indicating that Waters would be a member of the Yoshimura entry contesting the endurance race at the Suzuka circuit on July 31, that date would obviously rule out a wildcard WSBK entry at Silverstone, though the team is interested in entering Waters in other rounds later in the season.

2010 World Superbike Champion Max Biaggi will be adding a fifth star to his leathers in 2011, the existing four representing his previous world titles. Coincidentally, or perhaps not, four of his five titles have been on Aprilia machines, the first four being consecutive 250cc GP Championships between 1994 and 1997.

Max has re-signed with Aprilia for another two years and will begin his title defense next weekend when the WSBK season kicks off at Philip Island. The above photo is from the Miller Motorsports Park round in 2010, where Max won twice after Carlos Checa’s Ducati quit while in comfortable leads in both races.

The AMA released a “preliminary” calendar for the 2011 road racing season Wednesday, consisting of just eight rounds.  After a much-ballyhooed rescheduling of the Daytona 200 to a night race, 2011 will again see the premier race of the season in the afternoon. With plenty of time between the currently scheduled races at Infineon Raceway, Miller Motorsports Park (the same weekend as World Superbike), Road America, Mid-Ohio, Laguna Seca (the same weekend as MotoGP), Virginia International Raceway, and New Jersey Motorsports Park, it does appear possible that the schedule could fill out as the off-season progresses.

The 2011 season marks the return of AMA road racing to Miller since 2008, and is only the fourth time the series has descended on the circuit. Roger Hayden, returning to AMA racing and riding for Michael Jordan Racing alongside Ben Bostrom in 2011, claims he is “probably the only person bummed not to see road Atlanta on the schedule,” according to his Twitter account. It is surprising that Road Atlanta is not featured on the schedule, though the lack of racing at the Auto Club Speedway in Fontana, California isn’t exactly shocking, as that round was never as successful as hoped. Since neither of those two races have been carried over from last season’s schedule, just over two months passes between the 200 and the next race at Infineon.

You gotta love Erik Buell. Say what you will about his motorcycles, but the guy and his team live outside of the box, and it’s awesome. When Geoff May had an off at Miller Motorsports Park, and launched his Erik Buell Racing 1125RR into the air, the result was this busted PVM forged magnesium rear-wheel.

While most teams would throw it into the scrap heap, EBR is instead auctioning it off on eBay to help raise the funds needed for a replacement wheel. That’s entrepreneurship at it’s finest folks. The only thing that makes this auction better, is the description that follows.

The countdown to Memorial Day weekend is alive and well in the Asphalt & Rubber office this week (in fact our web designer already took off for Amsterdam…no good can come from that). As we Americans get ready for a three-day weekend (four-days if you played your vacation/sick days right), one of the highlights that we can look forward to is World Superbike’s sole stop in the US at the Miller Motorsports Park.

Helping get us ready for the only WSBK race to occur on a Monday, we’ve gotten ahold of all the past WSBK races, and put them into one post so you can re-cap the 2010 season to-date. Ok, ok, World Superbike put them up on YouTube, and we copy/pasted the clips into this post…but still, it’s a great way to re-live the WSBK season before it hits MMP, or to just catch a race you missed. Kyalami above, Monza, Assen, Valencia, Portimao, and Phillip Island after the jump. Enjoy!