As the 2018 MotoAmerica season came to a close at Barber Motorsports Park in September, Yoshimura Suzuki officials wouldn’t say who will be replacing retiring Roger Hayden on the team in 2019. Rumors circulating through the paddock at that event, however, indicated that Josh Herrin had become a strong candidate for the job.
This rumor was given more creditability by Mathew Scholtz, who at the MotoAmerica season finale told Roadracing World that he was no longer in the running for the Yoshimura Suzuki ride and would likely be returning with the Westby Racing team in 2019.
Valentin Debise, who has always been considered a strong candidate to replace Roger Hayden, tested with Yoshimura Suzuki at Auto Club Speedway in Fontana, California on October 19th, about three weeks after the season finale, and word is that the test went well.
Read our exclusive coverage of that test here: https://www.roadracingworld.com/news/motoamerica-su…
At the Barber finale, Herrin told Roadracing World that he would also test with Yoshimura Suzuki, on a later date, at Thunderhill Raceway Park, in Willows, California. But now Herrin says no test has been scheduled.
“No, I honestly don’t have a day planned with them or anything,” Herrin told Roadracingworld.com Tuesday. “I’m still just talking with Don [Sakakura, President of Yoshimura Racing]. We haven’t had any negotiations or anything. I’ve been reaching out to them, and I’m still talking to Richard [Stanboli, Attack Performance owner] and stuff, still trying to figure stuff out.”
Herrin and Stanboli were partners in the Attack Performance/Herrin Compound Yamaha MotoAmerica Superbike team in 2018, but with Herrin pursuing the factory ride on the Yoshimura Suzuki, Stanboli has been looking at other options, including not racing at all in 2019.
“I really need the motivation of a strong rider to put a program like this together, someone who can get the job done, not someone who is going to be racing for fifth and sixth,” Stanboli told Roadracing World at the MotoAmerica season finale at Barber Motorsports Park. “This year we were racing for podium spots at all the rounds and we won two races. Next year I could see us racing for the Championship, if we continued.”
Stanboli has since confirmed that he is “communicating” with former 250cc Grand Prix World Championship, five-time MotoGP race winner and 22-time World Superbike race winner Marco Melandri, age 36.