ELKHART LAKE, Wis. – Yoshimura Suzuki’s Josh Herrin won Sunday’s EBC Brakes Superbike race in the Championship at Road America, but it was Cameron Beaubier who may have come away the biggest winner.
Herrin was solid throughout the 13-lap EBC Brakes Superbike race and it resulted in his second win of the year and the eighth of his AMA Superbike career, the Georgian holding off Beaubier by .506 of a second at the finish.
Herrin’s win moved him into a tie for 22nd with Tommy Hayden and Wes Cooley on the all-time AMA Superbike win list.
“I was comfortable sitting behind Toni (Elias),” Herrin said. “From just the glance I get at the monitors (JumboTron), it’s nicer to take a glance at the monitors than it is the pit board because it just shows you exactly where they are. I could see that we had a little gap on Cameron (Beaubier), I thought. I was just drafting Toni and then I’d kind of pull up alongside of him. One of the laps, I think he thought I was trying to race him down the back straight and maybe beat him on the brakes.
“I saw him shake his head and maybe getting frustrated. He just rolled off, like just go. That’s not what I wanted. I wanted to keep doing what you were doing and trying to break those guys because I know our bikes were running fast this year. But somehow it ended up working out in the end. I just knew that on the last lap I wanted to make a pass somewhere that for sure he wasn’t expecting it. I think where I did it was perfect and enough to kind of get him flustered. Then his whole plan kind of goes out the window. He was probably expecting me to go in on Canada Corner and come in a little hot and then cross back underneath him. So, it worked out perfect for me.”
Beaubier had been in the lead trio for the majority of the race and was handed second place on a platter when Herrin’s teammate Toni Elias, the winner of Saturday’s race, crashed out of the battle in the final corner. Elias’ miscue not only gifted Beaubier second, it also put the battle back into championship battle as Beaubier gained 20 points on the championship leader and now trails Elias by nine points, 151-142.
Beaubier’s teammate Garrett Gerloff finished third for the second day in a row, the Texan ending up 6.172 seconds behind Herrin. In turn, Gerloff was five seconds ahead of J.D. Beach. Mathew Scholtz finished fifth for the second straight day, the South African ending up right on Beach’s tail.
In Supersport, Team Hammer’s M4 ECSTAR Suzuki squad had the measure of the field on Sunday, and its teammates Bobby Fong and Sean Dylan Kelly had a rousing battle for the win between themselves and also with Rickdiculous Racing Yamaha rider Hayden Gillim.
All three of them led the 11-lap event, and in the end, Fong maneuvered his bike onto the final straight in order to break Gillim’s draft, while Kelly drafted past Gillim. Fong took the checkers and Kelly barely squeaked past Gillim to take second and shuffle Gillim to third.
In Sunday’s Liqui Moly Junior Cup race, the odds-on favorite to win was Saturday’s victor Rocco Landers, and Landers lived up to the hype by drafting into the lead on the final stretch to the finish line. Dallas Daniels led throughout the majority of the seven-lap contest, but he fell victim to Landers’ draft maneuver for the second day in a row.
At a track that favors top speed and horsepower, the expectation in MotoAmerica’s Twins Cup class was that Michael Barnes and his Quarterley Racing Ducati Monster 797 would dominate Sunday’s race.
As it turned out, Barnes was at a disadvantage against the smaller-displacement bikes due to their ability to draft past the Ducati. Draik Beauchamp got a great jump at the start and kept himself in the lead pack throughout the eight-lap sprint. He was challenged by both Barnes and Roadracing World Young Guns Suzuki rider Alex Dumas.
Beauchamp took the lead and kept it to record his first career Twins Cup victory, while Dumas’ second-place finish was his first Twins Cup podium.
In MotoAmerica’s Stock 1000 class, MESA37 Racing Kawasaki’s Stefano Mesa moved up a spot from the second-place result that he got in Saturday’s race to grab the victory on Sunday.