Petrucci and Gagne trade wins in MotoAmerica, but they've hardly seen each other

Warhorse HSBK Racing Ducati NYC rider Danilo Petrucci, who came to MotoAmerica this year from MotoGP by way of Dakar, still leads the series despite finishes of fourth and third this weekend at Virginia International Raceway. Westby Racing's Mathew Scholtz is just four points behind Petrucci after two more second-place finishes, giving him five seconds in six races. But the ominous "Jaws" music you hear is coming from the Fresh N Lean Progressive Yamaha corner of the paddock after last year's champion Jake Gagne recorded two solid wins at VIR on his Yamaha YZF-R1. That puts him just 13 points behind Petrucci.

Just like last year, when Gagne had a mechanical DNF in the first race of the season and then reeled off 16 straight wins, you can feel the comeback building. Speed has never been in question, since Gagne has won every pole position this season, but now the race wins are following.

This year, mechanical problems at the first round at the Circuit of the Americas, which the team blamed on inconsistent fuel, left Gagne with just 16 points after a DNF and a third while Petrucci got two wins. At round two at Road Atlanta, Gagne crashed out while leading race one as Petrucci won again and then Gagne finally got a solid win in race two, while Petrucci suffered his own DNF due to a mechanical problem.

In Virginia, Gagne pulled away from the start and managed the gap both days, winning the races by 2.960 and 3.244 seconds.

So we still haven't seen that race showdown between Gagne and Petrucci, between the guy who won a record 17 Superbike races last season and the racer with the strongest MotoGP resume ever to come to MotoAmerica. But the showdown is coming, one way or another. Last year, Gagne's biggest gaps over the field happened at VIR. That gap was smaller this year.

"There's no such thing as the big, whatever, eight-second leads anymore," said Gagne. "It's going to be some good battling. I think we'll put on a show that will be a little better than some of those races last year. As much as I love cruising around at the front, you know, I love battling, too. I love racing these boys."

While Gagne has been racing against rivals like Scholtz since they were both in the Red Bull MotoGP Rookies Cup more than a decade ago, he doesn't have any experience racing with Petrucci. So when that showdown comes, Gagne won't have a lot of information on which to build a strategy.

"We haven't really been neck-to-neck and trading positions," said Gagne. "I haven't really been that close to him. But we have an idea of the strength of the Yamaha and what the Ducati does well. So it's going to make it interesting. It will be interesting coming to some of these different tracks and seeing who reigns supreme. But I know these Yamahas are really, really solid at every race track we go to."

After Saturday's fourth-place finish, Petrucci battled with Scholtz for second in Sunday's race, three seconds behind Gagne. Scholtz held him off by just 0.02 seconds at the line, and then in a bizarre finish, Petrucci crashed seconds after taking the checkered flag.

The crash wasn't captured on MotoAmerica video and the Ducati team refused to talk about it. Reportedly, Petrucci was treated for a laceration, though he was seen walking away from the crash. Petrucci did not attend the post-race news conference because of his injury and the team refused to let him speak publicly.

Fourth-place finisher Cameron Petersen was the rider in the best position to see what happened, but he only saw the end of the crash. The "straight" after the finish line at VIR isn't really a straight, but is curved, and Petersen speculated that Petrucci was carrying maximum speed to the finish line and just got too close to the edge of the track and tucked the front.

Whatever happened, it was an angry Ducati team packing up in the paddock and a rider nursing an injury and hanging on to a much narrower points lead.

So that's three wins for Petrucci followed by three wins by Gagne, and still the open question of how the two will match up when they finally fight head to head for a win. The next chance for the delayed showdown is scheduled for June 3 to 5 at Road America.

MotoAmerica Medallia Superbike standings
1	Danilo Petrucci	Ducati	104
2	Mathew Scholtz	Yamaha	100
3	Jake Gagne	Yamaha	91
4	Cam Petersen	Yamaha	78
5	Héctor Barberá	BMW	63
6	Jake Lewis	Suzuki	56
7	Richie Escalante	Suzuki	52
8	Ashton Yates	BMW	40
9	Travis Wyman	BMW	40
10	P.J. Jacobsen	BMW	33