Ben Spies finishes eighth on his second MotoGP appearance, in Sunday's US Grand Prix at Laguna Seca.

Ben Spies may not have delivered a knock-out blow, in terms of securing a 2009 MotoGP ride, at the US Grand Prix - but the reigning double AMA Superbike champion certainly proved he could hold his own amongst the premier-class field.

The Texan, who finished 14th on his last-minute MotoGP debut in place of Loris Capirossi at Donington Park, arrived at the familiar Laguna Seca circuit with the further benefit of MotoGP track time at the recent Indianapolis test.

Riding a third Rizla Suzuki alongside Capirossi and Chris Vermeulen, Spies qualified tenth out of the 18 riders, but had slipped back to 13th - just in front of fellow wild-card Jamie Hacking - by lap eight of 32.

Hacking later said that Spies "looked back (and) as soon as he saw it was me he upped the pace". Whatever the catalyst, Spies overtook fellow American Colin Edwards and Alice's Toni Elias on the following lap, and was up to ninth by lap 12.

"I didn't get the best of starts," Spies explained. "I got shuffled back a little bit early in the race and then got things sorted out and start getting by some guys. It felt good to start working my way up through the field. That's what I hoped I'd be able to do."

Spies remained in ninth until overtaking both Shinya Nakano and James Toseland on the 30th lap - but a last lap braking pass by Elias put Spies back down to eighth.

"Toni rode a great race and made a good pass on me on the last lap," Spies said sportingly. "I would have liked to have held on to seventh, but he made a really good move."

Spies was pleased to learn that he had set the sixth fastest lap of the race, a 1min 22.96secs, on lap 27. That lap time was bettered only by Casey Stoner, Valentino Rossi, Vermeulen, Elias and Nicky Hayden.

In terms of his Suzuki team-mates, Vermeulen finished in third place (15secs ahead of Spies) while the injured Capirossi was 14th (20secs behind Spies). Hacking, making his MotoGP debut for Kawasaki, finished eleventh (four seconds behind Spies)

"Overall I'm happy with my result," Spies stated. "After the issues we had earlier in the weekend it was good to make some solid progress in the race. These are the best riders in the world. Hopefully I showed I have the potential to run with these guys."

Rizla Suzuki team manager Paul Denning certainly felt Spies had held his own.

"We were very impressed with Ben's ride, his speed grew as the race wore on as he got a better feel from the GSV-R - he can be very proud of his weekend's work," said the Briton. "MotoGP has a field full of highly talented racers and Ben certainly didn't look out of place among them."

Directly after the MotoGP race, Spies finished a distant second to Rockstar Makita Suzuki team-mate Mat Mladin in the AMA Superbike race.

Several observers said Spies appeared to be a bit off his normal pace, owing to fatigue from competing in both events, but Spies downplayed that speculation.

"I wasn't tired," he said. "Mat simply rode better than me today. We still have a pretty solid lead in the championship. We head to Mid-Ohio in a couple of weeks and I'll try to get re-focused and back to winning races."

Spies will have a further chance to reach his target of a top five MotoGP finish when he makes his final scheduled grand prix appearance of 2008 at the inaugural Indianapolis GP on September 14.