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After the first six MotoAmerica Motul Superbike races, Cameron Beaubier said he was sick of finishing second. There’s nothing like a perfect weekend to cure what ails you.
Monster Energy/Yamalube/Yamaha Factory Racing rider Cameron Beaubier came into the Dunlop Championship at Road America this weekend trailing Yoshimura Suzuki Racing’s Toni Elias by 35 points. But by leading the practice sessions, earning pole position and winning both races, Beaubier left with a two-point lead over Elias and renewed confidence. Before this weekend, some were beginning to think Elias was a sure thing to repeat as champion. But after Saturday’s eventful race, in which Beaubier and Elias clashed and Elias scored no points, and Elias’ fourth-place finish on Sunday, the scenario now looks very different.
Sunday’s race had the close battles of Saturday but without the fairing-banging action that led to a reportedly contentious post-race meeting with Race Direction by the top three riders and a post-race statement by Yoshimura Suzuki complaining that MotoAmerica did not penalize Beaubier for the last-lap incident in which Elias crashed.
At the start of Sunday’s race, Elias got his usual holeshot, but Beaubier, Attack Performance/Herrin Compound Racing’s Josh Herrin and Yoshimura Suzuki’s Roger Hayden were close behind. The top four swapped positions until the race came to an abrupt halt on lap five as Yamalube/Westby Racing’s Mathew Scholtz crashed hard. Scholtz was slow to get up and his Yamaha YZF-R1 was lying on the track, so the red flag immediately came out.
Scholtz was not significantly injured, but once he caught his breath he hurled his gloves into the ground in frustration. He came into the weekend tied for second with Beaubier but left Road America in fourth place, 48 points behind, with just two points to show for the weekend.
On the restart, the same four — Elias, Herrin, Hayden and Beaubier — put a gap between themselves and the rest of the field. Herrin was visibly carrying more corner speed than Elias and was taking a wider line just to conserve momentum, but there was no way to make a pass around the outside of the defending champion.
“I was trying to give myself some room on the brakes so I could get a good run to the corner and get up on him coming out of the corner,” Herrin said. “It seemed like even if I lined it up perfect I’d get within an inch of his back tire in the draft but with the better drive he’d still pull out of the draft.” Herrin said the tactics reminded him of the days when he raced a 600 cc inline-four against much larger V-twin Buells with more torque.
Meanwhile, Elias said part of his problem was that the team never found the best suspension setup for the new, taller Dunlop KR451 slick rear tire that was raced this weekend for the first time. In Sunday’s race, his bike also had some shifting issues. At one point after the restart, he missed a shift and ran wide, dropping him back to the second group, and he did not have the pace to catch up to the lead group.
That left three in contention, and Herrin and Beaubier pulled a small gap on Hayden. The two traded the lead on the last lap, with Herrin passing and then running wide in Canada Corner. It came down to the last corner and the uphill drag race to the finish line, but Herrin’s R1 bucked him out of the saddle as he got on the gas and that was enough to prevent him from making an attempt at a draft pass.
“I think the biggest mistake was just running into Canada Corner hot,” said Herrin. “I might’ve had a shot if I hadn’t done that. The last corner was just kind of like one last effort because I knew I couldn’t draft by him to the line. He was getting real good drives out of there and I couldn’t keep the front wheel down.”
Herrin said the last-corner wobble was no big deal. He has been training by taking his YZF-R1S to track days, turning the traction control off and using street tires so the bike would intentionally be sliding around a lot.
“It just started bucking me,” he said of his race bike in the last turn. “It was nothing. When I turn the TC off (on the R1S) I'm knee down to the lock leaving blackies like flat-track bikes."
“I’m really, really happy with how the weekend went,” said Beaubier. “My bike felt perfect from the first session on.”
“I was a little nervous going into Canada Corner behind him (Herrin) because I knew he had the last section dialed and I was able to sneak up inside of him when he went a little wide. I thought I was pretty protected going into the last corner and somehow he found a way up the inside. But that was a really fun race the second half and I’m really, really happy I was able to get it done for the Yamaha boys.”
For Hayden, the first podium of the year offered a break from a bleak start to the season.
“I’ve been struggling a little bit with my confidence,” Hayden said. “I needed this podium to kind of get my season going. Get some momentum.
“I’ve had so many crashes this year. Some of them were my fault and some of them weren’t. Yesterday, I just wanted to get a finish. Today I could ride a little more relaxed. I’ve crashed more this year than the last four combined. It took a while to get the confidence back.”
MotoAmerica Motul Superbike standings:
- Cameron Beaubier, 153
- Toni Elias, 151
- Josh Herrin, 115
- Mathew Scholtz, 105
- Jake Lewis, 77
- Garrett Gerloff, 74
- Kyle Wyman, 66
- Danny Eslick, 57
- David Anthony, 50
- Bobby Fong, 48
Supersport
Supersport race two turned into a super-tight two-man battle of strategy.
Points leader J.D. Beach and Saturday winner Valentin Debise pulled away from the rest, but neither could shake the other, so a lot of the action was taking place inside their helmets. With Beach’s Monster Energy/Y.E.S./Graves Yamaha YZF-R6 and Debise’s M4 ECSTAR Suzuki Racing GSX-R600 evenly matched on power this year, both riders made drafting passes on Road America’s straights as they sized up each other.
“I was planning maybe to run away like I did yesterday but I saw that J.D. was looking more comfortable today than yesterday,” Debise said. “So I say, OK, last lap, stay in the back, wait, wait until the last turn. I went wide in the last turn to get back to the apex really fast. And then he went kind of left and really surprised me and so my bike wobbled a little bit off the corner.”
“Every time he did draft by me he had some speed,” said Beach. “It was a lot of fun racing, though. We were racing hard and I knew with the speed I had I had to try something coming out of the last turn. I just tried to do a different line than what I had been doing.”
Beach’s tactic worked well enough to allow him to hold an advantage of 0.037 seconds at the finish line.
Behind them, Hayden Gillim and Cory West had a battle of their own for third, which Gillim won by an almost identical 0.036 seconds.
Despite narrowly missing out on a perfect weekend for his first MotoAmerica race of the season, after serious injuries in the Daytona 200, Debise was pleased. With 45 points this weekend, he moved into ninth place in the standings despite missing the first four races.
“After what happened several months ago, it’s great for me and great for the team,” he said. “I’m happy to be back. I love being here and doing what I love.”
MotoAmerica Supersport standings:
- J.D. Beach, 140
- Hayden Gillim, 97
- Cory West, 79
- Braeden Ortt, 60
- Nick McFadden, 59
Liqui Moly Junior Cup
Junior Cup points lead Alex Dumas showed weakness for the first time this season, crashing out of the lead in turn 13 of the first lap of Sunday’s race when he lost the front.
“I think I was leading onto the front straight and most of the way down the straightaway I’m wow, we’re doing good. And right as we start tipping into turn one I got my doors blown off by probably seven guys,” said MP13 Racing’s Cory Ventura, who eventually finished second on his Yamaha YZF-R3.
Ventura beat Ghilliman Racing’s Sean Ungvarsky on a KTM RC390 by 0.061 seconds at the line. The others in the pack fighting over the podium positions were Gavin Anthony, Jackson Blackmon, Jay Newton and Jamie Astudillo. Second place through seventh place were covered by 0.2 seconds.
Another notable performance was turned in by Quarterley Racing’s Dallas Daniels. On Friday, he won three championships and the 2018 Nicky Hayden AMA Flat Track Horizon Award at the AMA Flat Track National Championship. He went straight from Springfield, Illinois, to Road America and finished 16th on Saturday and ninth on Sunday in a very busy weekend of racing with little time to rest.
With four wins in six races, but zero points in the other two races, Dumas now has a narrow, two-point lead over Yates in the Junior Cup.
- Alex Dumas, 100
- Ashton Yates, 98
- Sean Ungvarsky, 79
- Cory Ventura, 68
- Gavin Anthony, 66
Stock 1000
Former Superstock 600 racer Shane Richardson got his first MotoAmerica victory by winning Sunday’s Stock 1000 race. The Woolich Racing/Kawasaki rider from New Zealand took the lead when Weir Everywhere Racing’s Travis Wyman, winner of the first two Stock 1000 races this season, crashed out. Richardson then held off Andrew Lee, also on a Kawasaki.
Third was Andy DiBrino on an EDR Performance/DiBrino Racing Yamaha.
- Andrew Lee, 60
- Travis Wyman, 50
- Shane Richardson, 38
- Timothy Bemisderfer, 34
- Stephen Incledon, 26
