Day 2 at MotoAmerica Round 3 Road America features qualifying sessions in the morning followed by the first races of the weekend. Superbike kicked off with Josh Herrin (HSBK Warhorse Ducati) securing pole after a blistering morning Q2 session. Herrin beat out Cameron Beaubier by 2 tenths of a second. However, Beaubier had an answer in Race 1.
Herrin got the whole shot off the start but Beaubier hunted him down by lap 6 and worked his way into some clean air allowing him to extend his lead. Herrin and Beuabier exchanged positions on lap 7 and back again on lap 8 for Beaubier to regain the lead. At this point the race was red flagged due to a mechanical failure that resulted in a major oil spill on track with 4 laps to go. MotoAmerica race control ended up calling the race and this handed Cameron Beaubier his 56th career win and 11th superbike win. The win moved him into first in the Medallia Superbike Championship.
Beaubier responds to the Media
When asked by the MotoAmerica media about his 11th win in Superbike Beaubier responded, “Yeah. Something about this track is just special for me. I love coming here. It seems like for the most part we always get pretty lucky on the weather here. Just staying by Elkhart Lake and going to have dinner at night. It’s just an amazing area. This track really suits my style, I feel like. It’s kind of crazy to think that I’ve got eleven wins here, for sure.”
This triumph came at the demise of prior championship leader Jake Gagne. Teammate PJ Jacobsen secured the 1-2 for Tytlers Cycle Racing ahead of Josh Herrin in P3. Gagne had mechanical issues all weekend with his Fresh N Lean Progressive Yamaha R1. After multiple mechanical failures leading up to Qualifying 1 Gagne was only able to qualifying P6 and subsequently had an additional failure during the race which ended his hopes of extending his title lead. Five riders DNF’d in race 1. Teammate Cameron Petersen finished fifth in the race but also had mechanical issues all weekend leading up to race 1. Richie Escalante finished in fourth ahead of Petersen. Gagne will look forward to race 2 tomorrow to salvage the weekend.
Stock 1000
It was another successful weekend for Ezra Beaubier (Orange Cat Racing) who extended his championship point lead with a win in stock 1000 race 1. Ezra stated to the MotoAmerica Press, “I knew we would be really strong this weekend. Obviously, the BMW Alpha Racing package is really, really strong, especially here with all the long straightaways. Yesterday went really well. We found some more with the bike this morning. I wasn’t able to really put a clean lap together.”
He continued
“I kind of just got held up with some traffic and didn’t get to show what my full potential was this morning. But I knew going into the race that we were going to be just as strong as anyone. I was ready to bring the fight. I knew those first couple laps it was going to be tough with going with the hard-option rear tire. It was super-slick and super-greasy those first couple laps. I saw Travis almost go down in the second-to-last corner. I kind of felt like that was my chance to try to break away and slowly just tried to inch away and saw I was slowly building a gap. Just kept my head down and kept clicking off my laps and just hitting my marks and did what I could to bring it home in P1.”
Second place went to Travis Wyman Racing’s Travis Wyman aboard his BMW M 1000 RR. His younger brother Cody Wyman whom has never raced in the class carved out a third place finish in his debut.
Supersport
The top three spots in Supersport was decided by less than a 1 second differential. Stefano Mesa (Tytlers Cycle Racing), Xavi Fores (HSBK Warhorse Ducati) and Josh Hayes (Squid Hunter Racing) had some fierce competition on the track. These top three riders pulled away from the pack early on and were in a race of their own. Fores was able to find the pace to edge out Mesa by 3 tenths securing his 4 consecutive win in his debut MotoAmerica Supersport season.
Fores had the following commetns for the MotoAmerica media, “About the race today, honestly I think it was the race I enjoyed more because, especially at the beginning of the race, I didn’t expect Josh to stay with us because during all the sessions yesterday and today, me and Stefano had something else compared to the others. But you can’t forget Josh Hayes on the racing. He’s a dog. He has a lot of experience. You always have to count with him. So, when he passed me the first time on turn five, I said, ‘Oh, he’s here.’ He’s even strong on brakes, because I brake there really late, and he passed me. He was turning well. So, I said, okay, it’s going to be good fun today.”
Fores Continued on the level of Competition in Supersport
“I think all of us three have some strong points on our bike, so my bike is quite good on brakes and on the top of the power a little bit better than previously. Josh in the middle sector, the Yamaha is always amazing and he’s so fast on the long corners. It’s difficult to stay sometimes with him. When he passed me, he pulled some gap away two or three corners and I said, ‘I have to wake up otherwise he’s going to go.’ Stefano, he’s light. He’s quite aerodynamic. The bike is going fast. He showed a lot of potential this weekend and all the season. So, this means that every time we go out, we improve something, we learn something from each other. This is something that I think the fans are enjoying, as well, because we do some overtakes, clean overtakes always. A lot of respect.”
Junior Cup
Junior Cup came down to the last 25 ft before the finish line. Rossi Moor seemingly had timed his draft on the leader perfectly to secure the win. However, Avery Dreher pulled an even stronger double draft to launch from 4th to 1st in the last 25 ft before the finish line. Moor took second and Levi Badie took third in a finish that had to be decided by finish line imaging. Dreher extends his championship lead with the win.
King of the Baggers
H-D Screamin’ Eagle’s Kyle Wyman won his fourth Mission King Of The Baggers race in a row on Saturday at Road America. The win came in dramatic fashion after Wyman made a pass on Tyler O’Hara (Indian Motorcycle/Progressive/Mission Foods) on the final lap to secure the victory. Wyman said, “We played our cards right.” Referring to capitalizing on mistakes. Race 2 is tomorrow. Wyman will attempt to go for 5 in a row.
Build Train Race
It was all Mikayla Moore in BTR. Moore continues to show she is no newbie to racing as she dominated the BTR field. Her win came by a margin of 17.2 seconds over second place finisher Crystal Martinez. Sonya Lloyd secured third. Last years BTR champion retired from the race with a mechanical failure.
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