MotoAmerica Road Atlanta by the numbers

The MotoAmerica season launched this weekend with a full range of motorcycle racing highs and lows at Michelin Raceway Road Atlanta. Broken down by the numbers, here's what we saw.

0.360 seconds: Average margin of victory on Saturday

Near-perfect conditions on Saturday produced five incredibly close races that were all decided by less than a one-second gap at the front. The average margin of victory for the day was 0.360 seconds. The rain and cool temperatures on Sunday scrambled the field, but a record crowd for MotoAmerica at Road Atlanta on Saturday got their money's worth.

1: A lot of firsts

This weekend marked a lot of firsts. The first MotoAmerica win by the new Rahal Ducati Moto team as P.J. Jacobsen rode his Panigale V2 to victory on Saturday. The first win in Twins Cup for the Suzuki GSX-8R, thanks to Rocco Landers' victory Saturday on the RevZilla/Motul/Vance & Hines entry (and the first win for RevZilla as a sponsor — go TeamZilla!). Mathew Chapin got his first MotoAmerica win with a victory in Saturday's Junior Cup race and Yandel Medina got his first in Sunday's Junior Cup race.

2: As in two different worlds

Saturday at Michelin Raceway Road Atlanta was about as perfect as conditions could get for racing, or at least for the fans. Mostly sunny skies and temperatures flirting with 80 degrees F made for glorious conditions, whether fans were watching stunt shows in the Fan Zone or taking demo rides from the half a dozen manufacturers who had fleets on hand.

Sunday was a different story, with rain beginning in the morning and temperatures staying stuck in the 50s all day. Steady light rain meant the track was consistently wet all day, except for the last race, the King of the Baggers race two. More on that below.

2: As in second-row qualifying positions for two Superbike champions

When was the last time you saw five-time Superbike champion Cameron Beaubier and three-time Superbike champion Jake Gagne both qualify off the first row for a MotoAmerica Steel Commander Superbike race? That happened this weekend and it shows how stacked the Superbike field is this year. The surprising front row consisted of Bobby Fong on the Wrench Motorcycles Yamaha YZF-R1, former Supersport champion Sean Dylan Kelly, who returned from Moto2 to race a BMW M 1000 RR for TopPro Racing, and former Superbike and Supersport champion Josh Herrin on the Warhorse HSBK Racing Ducati Panigale V4 R.

"It’s pretty awesome to race with all these guys," said Beaubier. "I was only two or three tenths off, and I was back in fifth in qualifying. That hasn’t been the case so much in the past years in MotoAmerica Superbike. So, it’s pretty cool."

3 of 6: Number of podium finishes for Rahal team

By any measure, it was a successful debut for the Rahal team, filling three of the six Supersport podium positions. P.J. Jacobsen followed up his Saturday win with a solid victory in the rain on Sunday and teammate Corey Alexander finished second on Sunday. Considering that the team came together late and was not up to pace in the Daytona 200, the progress has been rapid.

"It's no secret there's been a lot of changes after Daytona," said Alexander. "The team invested a lot. Graham (Rahal) himself probably had to go into the piggy bank and bring in some more support for the team."

"I want to thank ... the whole team for turning things around since Daytona," said Jacobsen. "Graham has done a great job, and so has Ben (Spies). This team is super organized and it's a really good environment over there. I'm really happy to be a part of that whole program."

One change since Daytona was the addition of experienced paddock hand Richie Alexander to a leadership role in the team. I don't think anyone doubted that the Rahal team was a serious effort, but if anyone did, that doubt has been removed.

5 of 6: Number of Supersport podium finishers with Superbike experience

In my season preview story, I told you the Supersport class was stacked with talent this year. Of the six podium spots in the class at Road Atlanta, five were filled by riders with significant Superbike experience: Jacobsen (twice), Alexander, Jake Lewis, and Mathew Scholtz. N2 Racing Bobblehead Moto's Blake Davis was the only kid able to get on the podium and break up the reign of veterans.

6 is back

In 2023, Beaubier returned to MotoAmerica after two years in Moto2 and surprised everyone by winning the first race at Road Atlanta on a Tytlers Cycle BMW M 1000 RR. But the season ended in bruising fashion, with Beaubier crashing through no fault of his own at Pittsburgh International Race Complex, suffering a concussion, and sitting out the final races. Whether the five-time champion would come back strong this season was a legitimate question.

He answered that question with another season-opening win on Saturday, 0.240 seconds ahead of three-time champion Gagne. He followed that with a second place, just 0.119 seconds behind Gagne, on Sunday. It wasn't a foregone conclusion that Beaubier would come back so strong from last year's bruising.

“I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t pretty over motorcycles after Pittsburgh," Beaubier said. "It was the longest off-season I've ever had. I was off the bike for a long time. I had to step aside and get hungry again. I don't like to talk about it, but hitting your head, it's scary. It's not something you want to mess around with."

Eventually, he said, the desire to compete and get back to racing set in. Now he's tied with Gagne for the Superbike points lead.

7: As in seven-wide racing in Junior Cup

Put a bunch of hungry, young kids on evenly matched bikes (almost all of them Kawasaki Ninjas) and it's common to see a tightly spaced pack racing all the way to the checkered flag in MotoAmerica Junior Cup. That was especially true in Saturday's dry conditions with a pack of eight riders battling and drafting for position, including a nearly impossible seven riders abreast coming into Road Atlanta's infamous turn 10, late in the race. Moments later, defending champion Avery Dreher crashed out of the lead with just two laps to go, allowing Chapin to score his first victory.

Fortunately, everyone missed Dreher and he was uninjured and able to compete again Sunday in both Junior Cup and Twins Cup.

13.887-second win makes an Aussie the King of the Baggers

The race with the biggest margin of victory of the weekend was still quite eventful. Sunday's King of the Baggers race, the last race of the day, was the only one to run on a (mostly) dry track. The S&S Indian Motorcycle factory team chose to start on slick tires, while the rest of the field started on rain tires. Despite a few damp spots, the drying track made it an easy win for former Australia Superbike champion Troy Herfoss, who finished 13.887 seconds ahead of his teammate, Tyler O'Hara, despite taking time to wave to the crowd and celebrate with a wheelie on the last lap. O'Hara was happy with second after being sick the first part of the weekend.

Behind the two factory Challengers, riders were sliding around on deteriorating rain tires on a fast-drying track. The popular winner of the battle for third was Max Flinders on the Mad Monkey Motorsports Indian Challenger, making it a podium sweep for Indian. Flinders crashed his Superbike in the race before the Baggers, jumped up, hobbled to the paddock with an injured hip, hopped on the Indian, and finished third, despite a few huge moments when the bike tried to throw him off. Kind of amazing, and quite popular.

"I was stoked to see him on the podium," Herfoss said of Flinders.

"I was sliding around but I love sliding around," said Flinders, who had to be helped onto the podium and was carried into the post-race press conference because of his painful hip injury. "It was a good time. I already crashed once today, my hip hurt, I was like hey, let's send it on this one. It can't get much worse. It went real sideways on me but I'm thankful my dad put me in flat track. It paid off."

Herfoss' perfect weekend, with two wins, vaulted him into first in the standings. He and Harley-Davidson Factory Racing's Kyle Wyman have been trading wins so far this season, but Wyman was among the riders caught out on the dry track with rain tires and finished fifth in Sunday's race. 

26: Riders Mathew Scholtz passed this weekend

Former Superbike rider Mathew Scholtz had an eventful start to his 2024 Supersport campaign. After seven years in Superbike with Westby Racing, Scholtz picked up a ride with Strack Racing (formerly Squid Hunter Racing), but the team encountered technical problems that caused Scholtz to miss most of the qualifying sessions. With a total of eight laps on a new-to-him Yamaha YZF-R6 in his first Supersport race in 10 years, Scholtz lined up in 11th spot on the grid on Saturday, got a poor start and fell back a few more spots, and then spent the entire race working his way to the front, briefly leading the race and finishing third in the end.

On Sunday, Scholtz again fell back to 15th on the first lap and again methodically worked his way toward the front, finishing fourth. Scholtz and Sunday winner Jacobsen were the only two riders to break below 1:40 on the soaked track. All told, Scholtz passed 26 riders, including a couple who passed him back on Saturday and a couple who crashed in front of him on Sunday. It's safe to say nobody passed more riders this weekend at Road Atlanta than Mathew Scholtz.

54: The rider who will miss several races

Just after the finish of Superbike race one, there was a collision involving Warhorse HSBK Racing Ducati's Loris Baz and Vision Wheel M4 ECSTAR Suzuki's Richie Escalante. The crash was not caught on video and details were sketchy, but Escalante hit Baz's Ducati from behind. Baz suffered a swollen ankle but was able to race Sunday. Escalante was taken to the hospital and held overnight. The team said he suffered a broken left wrist and three compressed vertebrae. He was well enough to fly home to Mexico for more medical treatment but is expected to miss several races.

MotoAmerica look ahead

The series now has almost a month off before the next round at Barber Motorsports Park on May 17 to 19. The Baggers class, which has already run one third of its season with six races, gets more of a break since it won't be competing at Barber.

Here are the standings after Road Atlanta:

	Steel Commander Superbike		Supersport
1	Jake Gagne	45	P.J. Jacobsen	50
2	Cameron Beaubier	45	Corey Alexander	33
3	Sean Dylan Kelly	24	Mathew Scholtz	29
4	Bobby Fong	22	Jake Lewis	26
5	J.D. Beach	22	Blake Lewis	20

	Mission King of the Baggers		Bellissimoto.com Twins Cup
1	Troy Herfoss	135	Gus Rodio	86
2	Kyle Wyman	126	Rocco Landers	64
3	Tyler O'Hara	79	Dominic Doyle	58
4	James Rispoli	79	Alessandro Di Mario	52
5	Hayden Gillim	74	Avery Dreher	37

	Junior Cup
1	Yandel Medina	41
2	Ryan Wolfe	40
3	Matthew Chapin	34
4	Eli Block	26
5	Isaac Woodworth	24