Riders Preferred Membership
Shop by Vehicle
Track Order
Contact Us
Motorcycle racing can be the cruelest sport, and also the most unpredictable. Millimeters can make the difference between an epic victory and a painful ambulance ride. A small opportunity can mark the line between watching the races at home on TV or changing their outcome on the track.
This MotoAmerica weekend at Pittsburgh International Race Complex, with too many red flags, showed some of that pain and elation.
Supersport
Let's start with Supersport, because that's the one championship that could have been decided this weekend. Coming in with nine wins and two second-place finishes in 11 races, Monster Energy/Y.E.S./Graves Yamaha rider J.D. Beach had a 100-point lead. If he maintained that advantage over Rickdiculous Racing's Hayden Gillim, he would clinch the title. Gillim and M4 ECSTAR Suzuki rider Valentin Debise, who missed the early races due to injury, were the only other riders to win a Supersport race this year and the three were running alone at the front of most races.
But it wasn't one of those three who ended up delaying Beach's title this weekend.
2016 Superstock 600 champion Bryce Prince saw his ride fall through in the off-season and was able to put together a ride with Kyle Wyman Racing. With no testing and a limited budget, he was running in the second tier of Supersport racers until this weekend. So even though he likes the three eastern tracks that end the season, he didn't think he could afford to compete at them. Then, at the previous round at Sonomia Raceway, RiderzLaw stepped up with additional sponsorship that allowed him to keep going.
He made the most of his new chance, finishing third in both races. In Saturday's race, Prince passed Beach in the closing laps to finish third, and that one pass, that one spot for Beach, ultimately prevented Beach from clinching the title this weekend.
"I hope I've shown all these people what I'm made of," said Prince. "I had one opportunity to come out here and do well and we put it on the box both times. I knew coming into this weekend we needed to make some changes to close the gap to the lead three and we did exactly that. I think now, having been on the box twice, we definitely have the most confidence we've had all season."
Saturday Supersport race winnner Debise suffered a nasty high-side crash in Sunday's race while fighting with Gillim for the lead and was lucky to walk away with no serious injuries.
"I hope Debise was OK," Beach said immediately after the race, having had a front-row spectator position for the Suzuki rider's crash. "That was gnarly. That one was big."
| MotoAmerica Supersport standings | ||
|---|---|---|
| 1 | J.D. Beach | 303 |
| 2 | Hayden Gillim | 205 |
| 3 | Valentin Debise | 150 |
| 4 | Bryce Prince | 136 |
| 5 | Nick McFadden | 128 |
Sunday's race was interrupted by a red flag on the first lap and ended prematurely by a second red flag, both due to crashes. After winning a race the first weekend of the season in Road Atlanta, Gillim is getting tired of finishing second, getting his fourth and fifth second-place finishes this weekend.
Beach's absence from the podium Saturday for the first time all season was a short absence. "We just chose the wrong rear tire" on Saturday, Beach said. "That hurt us real bad and we learned from our mistake."
With four races remaining in September at New Jersey Motorsports Park and Barber Motorsports Park, Beach only needs a minimum of three DNFs and a 14th-place finish to win the title. So it's more a case of moment delayed rather than denied.
Motul Superbike
In the premier class, Saturday's race provided a popular win by fan favorite Josh Herrin in extremely unusual conditions while Sunday's race provided another last-lap showdown between the two usual suspects.
Immediately after Saturday's Supersport race ended, a light shower hit the track, but only part of it. Most of the track was dry, but part of the track was wet. Superbike riders on slicks were forced to ease their way downhill on slicks on a wet track. The result looked like a Motul Superbike race for most of the lap and an intermediate class track day group in the few wet corners, as the pace and lean angles reduced dramatically. Despite the fact they were doing most of the lap at full speed, in the early laps of the race the frontrunners were putting in laps in the 1:49 range, 10 seconds off Cameron Beaubier's track record set in the morning.
Attack Performance/Herrin Compound rider Josh Herrin built a four-second lead in the tricky conditions. "Obviously, the race went well, nothing went wrong, but it was pretty sketchy conditions," said Herrin, who, after the warmup lap, wasn't sure the race should start. "I was kind of scared at the beginning and not confident at all," but after a lap he looked back and saw no one was close to him.
"I was pretty impressed how the tires were wet on the first part of the track and then you could just hammer on them right away," Herrin said. "I"ve always kind of been nervous to go from wet to dry but the tires worked really well."
Further back in the pack, Monster Energy/Yamalube/Yamaha Factory Racing rider Garrett Gerloff was figuring out the conditions and started moving through the field.
"I just was trying to keep it on two wheels until I could figure out what the bike was doing through that first section," said Gerloff. "From turn six or seven it was dry all the way back to turn two, so I knew I just needed to pace myself through the first section and then just hammer it until turn two again. That was my strategy."
As the race went on, "A dry line started forming in that first section and once that happened I felt good," Gerloff said. At the end of the race, Gerloff was in the 1:42 range while the others at the front were still putting in 1:44 laps. Gerloff passed Yamalube/Westby Racing's Mathew Scholtz on the last lap for second place, leaving him thinking, "Man, if I had two more laps."
For Gerloff's teammate, points leader Beaubier, Saturday's race began with a rare mental mistake and ended without the confidence to push for the win. At the start, Beaubier mistakenly came down pit lane at the end of the sighting lap, thinking that there would be two sighting laps, when he should have returned to the grid, said his crew chief Rick Hobbs. As a result, he was forced to start the race from the back of the grid. Even though he worked his way up to fifth place on the first lap, Beaubier never got comfortable with the strange mixed wet and dry conditions and made no more progress, finishing the race fifth.
"You get one of those races every once in a while where you just have absolutely no confidence and just no feel for what the bike is doing and that was one of those races for me," said Beaubier. "It was just weird to tell your brain to chill in the first part of the track when it was wet, on slicks, and be super careful, and then go for it the rest of the track. I was struggling pretty bad with that. I'm glad we got through it safe."
Amazingly, none of the 14 Superbike riders crashed in the tricky conditions.
For Herrin, it was his first Superbike win since 2013, the year he won the championship. It also marked a huge turnaround from a year ago at PIRC when he showed at the race track to learn that his Meen Motorsports team had pulled the plug on its Superbike effort, leaving him riding around the paddock on a scooter, scouting for a ride, instead of racing. So his first race at PIRC was this year — and a win.
"I was kind of nervous to ride here. I didn't think I'd do well because it's a difficult track to learn," said Herrin. But now, given how much he enjoys the track and the enthusiasm of the fans he met, he is advocating that MotoAmerica should have two PIRC rounds per year.
By the time Sunday's Superbike race lined up, the track was thoroughly dried from a morning shower, the sun was beating down and the asphalt was heating up. Normal service soon resumed at the front.
Yoshimura Suzuki Racing's Toni Elias got a typically good start to lead early, but Beaubier again had troubles. If you've ever seen the controls on a Superbike, you know there is an array of buttons the rider has to keep straight. Beaubier believes that at the start of Sunday's race he hit both the launch control and the pit limiter buttons. As a result, his bike bogged down and he fell to fourth place at the start.
| MotoAmerica Motul Superbike standings | ||
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Cameron Beaubier | 329 |
| 2 | Toni Elias | 273 |
| 3 | Josh Herrin | 228 |
| 4 | Mathew Scholtz | 190 |
| 5 | Garrett Gerloff | 177 |
Once past Herrin and Gerloff, Beaubier began hunting down Elias, catching him about mid-race when they were four seconds ahead of the rest of the field. Beaubier then followed Elias for several laps, looking for an opportunity.
"I knew there was no way I could pass him and gap him," said Beaubier. "I knew that wasn't happening. So I waited until the end and tried to get creative."
That led to another last-lap showdown like the one that ended in anger in Road America. There were three passes for the lead on the last lap, but those exchanges left Elias with the inside line in the last turn and despite a strong move by Beaubier, Elias held on to win by 0.046 seconds.
"It was crazy," Elias said of the last lap. "I'm really proud of these two. There's not many championships you can see this show, no? Some days it falls on my side, some days it falls on his side. Everybody is there to try to win. I try to push all the last lap, trying to close the doors, but I knew he had the pace, he was there and he was going to try it and he did."
Beaubier's lead only dropped to 56 points with 100 points still to be claimed at the last two rounds.
Liqui Moly Junior Cup
Two wins by KTM Orange Brigade/JP43 Training's Alex Dumas, coupled with a fourth and a crash by Ashton Yates of Yates Racing, left Dumas with a strong hold on the championship. Both Junior Cup races were interrupted by red flags due to crashes.
| MotoAmerica Liqui Moly Junior Cup standings | ||
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Alex Dumas | 236 |
| 2 | Ashton Yates | 172 |
| 3 | Cory Ventura | 165 |
| 4 | Jay Newton | 129 |
| 5 | Sean Ungvarsky | 125 |
On Saturday, Dumas, on his KTM RC390, battled for the win with BARTCON Racing's Damian Jigalov on a Kawasaki Ninja 400. Jigalov finished second in just his third weekend of MotoAmerica racing. He just turned 14, the minimum age for Junior Cup, this summer. Jackson Blackmon of RiderzLaw Racing finished third.
On Sunday, Yates crashed late in the race while leading when his rear tire dropped off the track into the mud in the chicane area of the track. Then Quarterley Racing's Renzo Ferreira crashed while leading, giving Dumas the win. MP13 Racing's Cory Ventura finished second and Blackmon got another third.
Twins Cup
Chris Parish and Jason Madama have been the only two riders to compete in every Twins Cup round. Madama got a gift in the championship battle when Paris ran out of fuel. Madama won on his Yamaha MT-07 while Kris Turner and Chris Bays finished second and third on Suzuki SV650s.
Stock 1000
In yet another race ended prematurely by multiple red flags, Andrew Lee of RiderzLaw Racing won easily by 6.8 seconds on his Kawasaki ZX-10R. A three-way fight for second ended when Dustin Dominguez crashed, bringing out the red flag that ended the race. Shane Richardson Jr. finished second on a Kawasaki and Chad Lewin was third on a Yamaha YZF-R1. Travis Wyman finished fourth on his BMW S 1000 RR and now trails Lee by 42 points in the standings.
