Three Honda Racing Corporation representatives were on hand at The Ridge on Friday, guests of MotoAmerica and American Honda. The HRC guests represented serious top-level motorcycle road racing insight and experience. Katsuhiko Imai served as HRC Staff member for LCR Honda in MotoGP; Takeo Yokoyama worked as Dani Pedrosa’s track engineer for three years in MotoGP and now serves as Technical Manager for HRC. American Honda’s Brandon Wilson says the HRC representatives brought technical advice and data analysis for the teams running CBR 1000 RR-R racebikes at The Ridge, and also came to get a personal look at the status of the series and the machines racing in MotoAmerica. It is unclear whether it is correlation or causality, but with the HRC representatives on hand, Hayden Gillim had his best outing in 2025 by far for the Real Steel Honda. On a machine that is far from the level of sophistication of the front-running Superbikes, Gillim nailed down second in the first practice session and third in provisional qualifying, 0.178 seconds off of pole and ahead of several full Superbike-spec machines.
Jake Gagne has five podiums and three wins in the last six races at The Ridge Motorsports Park. The Attack Performance Progressive Insurance Yamaha rider was on form on Friday, topping both sessions. It was the first time that Gagne, the three-time MotoAmerica Superbike Champion, had led a practice session all season.
Vision Wheel M4 ECSTAR Suzuki’s Sean Dylan Kelly and Richie Escalante were separated by only 0.029 seconds at the end of qualifying, but they were not where they wanted to be. With Gagne, Warhorse HSBK Ducati’s Josh Herrin and Gillim well clear of the field, the Suzuki Superbikes were a second off the pace.
Corey Alexander ran as high as second and finished fourth in Mission Super Hooligan provisional qualifying on the rapidly improving ARCH Racing 2S-R. The race-only V-twin machine made its debut at Daytona and has suffered development issues, but Alexander was quick on it at The Ridge, qualifying ahead of Hooligan Championship leader Jake Lewis.
Corey Alexander was pushing hard everywhere on Friday, on the edge and nearly over. In Supersport, his Rahal Ducati Moto/Roller Die Panigale V2 threw him out of the seat during provisional qualifying.
Alessandro Di Mario dominated the Twins Cup sessions on Friday. In provisional qualifying, he finished 1.886 seconds clear of the field on his Robem Engineering Aprilia.
