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For all of Ducati's success — dominance, even — in MotoGP and World Superbike in recent years, the Italian company has suffered a long drought in AMA Superbike racing. Three decades, to be precise.
Josh Herrin ended that drought Saturday at the MotoAmerica Superbikes at New Jersey round at New Jersey Motorsports Park, and he ended it in decisive fashion. Coming into the weekend, Cameron Beaubier had to win both races to have even a mathematical chance to steal the Steel Commander Superbike championship from Herrin, but instead Herrin won Saturday's first Superbike race on his Warhorse HSBK Racing Ducati Panigale V4 R, clinching the title a day early.
There's more than one unusual aspect to Herrin's second-ever Superbike championship. Here's a look at this title-winning season by numbers.
1: Bad prediction by Herrin. Before Saturday's race, with a 46-point lead, Herrin said he wouldn't be out to win. "I thought I'd be finishing eight or ninth for sure," Herrin said after the race. But the race was the first time so far this weekend that the Superbike riders were on a fully dry track under sunny skies, so that threw some unpredictability into the mix. Herrin couldn't help but go for the win.
"I just felt so comfortable and it looked like everyone else looked so uncomfortable," Herrin said. "The last three laps I saw I had pace so I just wanted to get by."
2: The number of key competitors hampered this year by injury. Herrin legitimately earned the title with his string of 12 podium finishes in the last 13 races. But his task was eased as the two multi-time Superbike champions in the field both missed races due to injuries. Through the entire season, defending and three-time champion Jake Gagne was held back by arm pump problems that kept him from riding at full speed. He managed one win at the opening round at Road Atlanta, but most of the season he was riding around just off the winning pace, just trying to rack up points by finishing in or near the top five. Very un-Gagne-like racing. That strategy had him tied for second in the standings after the Mid-Ohio round in August, but being 52 points behind Herrin, he and his Attack Performance Progressive Yamaha team decided he should skip the last two rounds, get medical treatment for the arm pump, and look toward 2025.
Meanwhile, five-time champion Cameron Beaubier on the Tytlers Cycle BMW team led the standings early in the season but the plot turned at Road America, where Beaubier crashed and broke his heel while Herrin found his stride and won the Sunday Superbike race by a dominant nine seconds. Due to crashes or injuries, Beaubier failed to score any points in six races, leaving him 60 points behind going into the last two rounds, with three races at the Circuit of the Americas and two races at New Jersey Motorsports Park. And while Beaubier proved in the past he could come back from a similar points deficit, this year he didn't have enough time.
6: Number of race winners this year in MotoAmerica Superbike. Six different winners on three different motorcycles, more diversity in winners than recent years in MotoAmerica, demonstrates the depth of the Superbike field this year.
6: Race wins by Herrin (with one left to run). After the first six races — two at Road Atlanta, three at Barber Motorsports Park, and the first race at Road America — things were not looking good for Herrin. He had just one podium finish and no wins. Then he turned it around in the Sunday race at Road America, winning by a dominating nine seconds over the rest of the field. Now, with one race left to run at NJMP, he has six wins, more than anyone in the field except Beaubier, who also has six.
11: Years between Herrin's two Superbike titles. Herrin won his first AMA Superbike championship in 2013 at age 23, when he broke the dominant run of his teammate and fellow Josh (Hayes, that is). Hayes won eight races that year, compared to Herrin's four, but Hayes was hampered by penalties, a crash, and mechanical DNFs. "At the end of the day, you look in the record books, my name is there, but in my mind I felt like I didn't deserve it," Herrin said of his first title. He doesn't feel that way about his second.
The 11-year gap is the longest period between championships by any rider in the history of the series and it's nearly a third of Herrin's lifetime. He had an up-and-down run in between those championships. Herrin went to Moto2 without success, returned and raced Superbike on two top teams without repeating a title, then won a Supersport championship.
30: Years since the last Ducati championship in AMA Superbike. It was 1994 when Troy Corser won the AMA Superbike championship on a Fast by Ferracci Ducati 888. Corser went on to win a couple of World Superbike titles but Ducati never again carried the number-one plate in the domestic Superbike series. Until now, 30 years later.
95%: The odds Herrin felt were against him. In the years he struggled in Moto2 and Superbike, "I thought there's probably a 5% chance" he could win another Superbike championship, but he found a place he was comfortable in the Warhorse HSBK Racing Ducati team.
"This was the biggest team effort I've ever seen in my career," Herrin said. "This is best team I ever rode with and I hope to continue with them as long as I can."
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