Dating back to last year, Cameron Beaubier has won 13 of the last 14 MotoAmerica Superbike races. On a sunny Saturday in New Jersey, Beaubier won his 10th of the 2020 season to extend his championship lead to a yawning 79 points over his Monster Energy Attack Performance Yamaha teammate Jake Gagne.
The win was also the 48th of the four-time MotoAmerica Superbike Champion’s AMA Superbike career and is closing in on his former teammate Josh Hayes (61 Superbike victories) for second on the all-time win list. The victory, however, didn’t come without a bit of pre-race stress.
“Truthfully, we were sitting on the grid and I wanted to go with the softer option tire, and Dunlop and my team were like, ‘I think you’d be better off on the 097,’ “ Beaubier said. “I just didn’t think that I’d be able to open up a little gap like I’ve been able to do at the beginning of this season. So, I just didn’t know if I’d quite have the time on the harder tire, but I’m really happy I went with it. So, thanks to those guys for throwing it on. I don’t know what to say. I just feel so good on this thing. Like I’ve said all year, it’s just so enjoyable going to all these tracks that we’ve been going to year after year with this new package that we have. To finally be able to get in the 19s (one-minute, 19-second laps)… I know we’ve done 20s around here for years. To finally be able to break into that 19 mark and get that lap record this morning felt really, really good. Just want to keep this thing going.”
As has been the norm so far in 2020, Beaubier’s win was dominant with the Californian taking victory by 9.599 seconds over Westby Racing’s Mathew Scholtz, who took full advantage of Gagne’s first-lap crash to close in on the Californian for second in the championship point standings.
“Like you were saying, it’s the halfway point of the season so I’m looking forward to the championship for me, personally,” Scholtz said. “I kind of knew that we had to start gaining points on Jake (Gagne), so once he crashed, I thought, ‘now we can pick up some serious points there.’ Not saying that I could have kept up with Cam (Beaubier) because he’s riding awesome, but I was definitely thinking second place wouldn’t slow me down as far as the championship goes. So, I kind of just chilled to there and brought it home. Really happy with how the bike is going. Just had to catch up to Jake because we were pretty far back at one point. So, I was really happy there. Tonight, we’ve got a couple things that we wanted to try yesterday but due to the conditions we weren’t able to, so hopefully we’ll try them for the warmup tomorrow and try to close the gap on Cameron.”
Third place went to a revitalized Toni Elias, the M4 ECSTAR Suzuki rider ending a podium-less drought that dated back 11 races.
“Not very, very happy but I feel it’s the first step,” Elias said. “This is positive. We are working hard. We did a little step this weekend. I felt the traction was coming back. There’re different things around this. We just opened the door and we found the group, so this group has to work now. It’s the first step and I’m happy.”
KWR Ducati’s Kyle Wyman bounced back from a disastrous round in the Pacific Northwest two weeks ago to finish fourth on his Ducati Panigale V4 R. Wyman was challenged early on by Bobby Fong but was able to pull clear of the M4 ECSTAR Suzuki rider to beat him to the flag by almost seven seconds.
Sixth place went to Ride HVMC Racing’s Corey Alexander, the New Yorker matching his previous best HONOS Superbike class result after barely holding off Altus Racing’s Cameron Petersen in the final laps. Petersen ended up seventh.
FLY Racing ADR Motorsports’ David Anthony and his teammate Bradley Ward finished eighth and ninth with Scheibe Racing BMW’s Josh Herrin rounding out the top 10.
After 10 HONOS Superbike races, Beaubier has 250 points – 79 more than Gagne and 81 ahead of Scholtz. Fong holds down fourth in the standings, 20 points ahead of his teammate Elias.
Superbike Race 1
- Cameron Beaubier (Yamaha)
- Mathew Scholtz (Yamaha)
- Toni Elias (Suzuki)
- Kyle Wyman (Ducati)
- Bobby Fong (Suzuki)
- Corey Alexander (Kawasaki)
- Cameron Petersen (Suzuki)
- David Anthony (Suzuki)
- Bradley Ward (Kawasaki)
- Josh Herrin (BMW)
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