LEEDS, Ala. – Between races, Cameron Beaubier has to keep pinching himself to see if all of this is real.
That’s what happens when you win 13 races, have six more left in the season and you know that, barring an issue, you will probably end the year with 19 wins.
Such is life for the four-time MotoAmerica Superbike champion in 2020.
Monster Energy Attack Performance Yamaha’s Beaubier won his 13th race of the year on Sunday at Barber Motorsports Park, a day after winning his 12th of the season and the 50th of his AMA Superbike career. Sunday’s race was similar to the other 12 wins with Beaubier jumping out front off the line, storming away at an unmatchable pace, and then maintaining that lead to the finish. At the line he was 5.125 seconds clear of runner-up Mathew Scholtz.
“Obviously, my game right now is just to try to get out front early and try to take advantage of the good rubber and try to manage my gap if I have one,” Beaubier said. “There towards midway I had a pretty good, I don’t know if they showed it or not, but I had a pretty good (front end) tuck. I almost crashed out of Charlotte’s Webb. The wind was kind of gusting. Some laps you’d go in there and you’d have a pretty big push, other laps you’d brake early. The wind was pretty tricky for me. I don’t know about these guys, but I was definitely getting blown around out there more than I was yesterday. After that happened, I just tried to kind of settle down.
“My gap started going down and Matty (Scholtz) started catching me a little bit. I just kept trucking along and brought it home. It’s been amazing. It’s just crazy. It’s crazy the year I’ve been having and just how fun and how hard the team is working. It’s so good to come in at the end of the session and you debrief with your guys and you take it seriously and all that, but then when they’re loading up the truck and leaving everyone’s just joking around. As a rider it’s so good to see those guys having a good time and enjoying their job like I am. It’s been an incredible year so far.”
Westby Racing’s Scholtz earned his 10th podium of the season and moved to one point behind Beaubier’s teammate Jake Gagne in the battle for second in the HONOS Superbike title chase. Gagne was in the battle early but ran into clutch trouble that slowed him to an eventual fifth-place finish.
Bobby Fong rode his M4 ECSTAR Suzuki to third place, the Californian getting back on the podium after a three-race hiatus from the top three. Fong closed on Scholtz at the end of the race, eventually finishing less than a second behind the South African.
Fong’s teammate Toni Elias ended up fourth, some 10 seconds ahead of the struggling Gagne, who in turn was some 22 seconds ahead of Scheibe Racing BMW’s Josh Herrin.