MotoAmerica Round 1 kicked off in Braselton, GA at the iconic Michelin Raceway Road Atlanta. Earlier we released our coverage of the Medallia Superbike Championship race. Here we discuss the outcomes for the other classes in the championship.
Stock 1000 Ezra Beaubier Completes the Double
After a surprising race 1 win Ezra’s weekend only got better with a second win in Stock 1000. Prior to this weekend his top finish was fifth place. To have his first and second wins occur on the same weekend is a feat he will remember forever. Ezra Beaubier who is younger brother to Medallia Superbike racer Cameron Beaubier put on a clinic to secure 50 points on the season. Ezra spoke to the MotoAmerica Media after the race when asked his thoughts on the double win, “Well, I hope it becomes a habit. Honestly I woke up today just with a completely different feeling. I finally had the confidence. I can do this now. I can run with these guys. I just felt really good. We found some stuff with the bike last night and it was really positive.”
He Continued
“In warmup, I basically matched my fastest lap of the race yesterday in warmup. I wasn’t really pushing super hard, so I felt super good going into the race, super confident. I felt like I could rip off a bunch of the 1:26s in the race, and I was able to execute that. In the beginning, I tried to pull out and see if I could get a gap, and I really wasn’t able to, so I just kind of backed it down and sat there. Then towards the end of the race, tried to pick it back up again. I saw on my pit board that Kaleb was right there on me.
On the last lap on the back straight, I felt him in my draft and started almost panicking a little bit. I tried to run a defensive line. Then he ended up running off in the last turn, which is a huge bummer not to go one and two as the Orange Cat BMW’s. But it was a great race and a great weekend for me. I hope to have many more of these.”
In other news MotoAmerica and AMA veteran Geoff May Announced his retirement from the series this weekend. May had raced for 25 years professionally and has decided that now is the time to focus on family and a career beyond racing. He will be missed.
Supersport
Xavi Fores takes the double win on his debut race weekend in MotoAmerica for Warhorse HSBK Ducati. Fores got the season started off right with a dominant performance in both Supersport races to secure maximum points. Fores leads the title chase with 50 points, 17 ahead of Stafno Mesa and Tyler Scott, who are tied for second, and 18 ahead of Hayes.
There are whispers that the 2022 super sport runner up Rocco Landers may be looking for a way to get back in the mix in 2023. We will report back when details are a bit more solidified.
Twins Cup
Speaking of Rocco Landers. Landers put on a dominant showing in Twins Cup race 2. Having previously won the Twins Cup championship, Rocco was no stranger to the level of competition he would face. Landers is filling in with Rodio Racing for the injured Ben Gloddy. After a disappointing mechanical failure from 2nd place in Saturday’s race. Landers appeared to be racing with a vengeance commanding an almost 8 second lead at one point in the race.
2022 class champion and Saturday’s race winner Blake Davis crashed early in race 2 but was able to continue on his N2 Racing/BobbleHeadMoto Yamaha YZF-R7 to finish 11th. Leaving him third in the championship standings behind Hayden Schultz and Gus Rodio. After four points races, Rodio leads the championship with 85 points 26 points ahead of Schultz and 29 ahead of Davis.
Junior Cup
Bad boys Racing rider Avery Dreher sealed the double win taking the maximum points for the weekend. Max Van and Hayden Bicknese finished in second and third respectively in both races. When asked about his race preparation Dreher stated, “Honestly, I went into the race with the same mindset, the same strategy as yesterday. I tried to fall in line at the beginning of the race, but they caught us towards the middle, so it was the same pack as yesterday. I’m glad we were going a lot faster than yesterday. Towards the end of the race, I felt like I had some pace to break away, so I made the move into 10A. I looked back once or twice. Saw that I had a gap and just put my head down. Happy with the result. Good job to Max and Hayden. Looking forward to Barber.”
King of the Baggers
H-D Screamin’ Eagle’s Kyle Wyman secured the double with his Harley-Davidson Road Glide.
Tyler O’Hara finished 1.830 seconds behind Wyman with Sac Mile/SDI Racing/Roland Sands/Indian’s Bobby Fong third. Vance & Hines Harley-Davidson teamsters Hayden Gillim and James Rispoli finished fourth and fifth. Wyman had the following words for the MotoAmerica media.
Wyamn stated, “That’s how you want to do it, aside from the challenge was a little bit of a throwaway, but we won every session and won both races. That’s kind of how you want to do it. I kind of wheelied on the start and had to roll out of it. Didn’t quite get the launch I wanted. Went to the brakes a little bit sheepishly, I would say, for turn one and Tyler got the wheel underneath me. I haven’t ridden behind Tyler in what feels like a long time. I don’t think at all this year and maybe even towards the end of last year not so much. So, just to see that thing.
He continued…
There were a couple places where I felt like our strength in that first sector really showed. Even on the warmup lap, I felt like if I wanted to get a run over turn five, I needed to give myself a little bit of space actually because we’ve got pretty tall gearing through there. So, I kind of gave myself a little bit of space. Gave myself an opportunity to see where the strengths and weaknesses were between the two of us. I had a pretty good run on the back straightaway.
He touched the rev limiter in one of his gears and kind of got me a little bit of a run down the back straight, it seemed like. I hit my shifts pretty good, but he might have missed one and it got me alongside of him going through nine. We were kind of side-by-side going through ten. We were both fighting for the position a little bit…Went a little bit quicker today than yesterday, as did everybody I think went quicker today.”
Wyman leads the championship point standings with 75 points, eight points ahead of Rispoli and 10 points ahead of Gillim. Defending Champion Tyler O’Hara is 14 points behind in fourth place.
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