Superbike races don’t get much better than the one that took place on Saturday in Texas, with the top three in the championship exchanging blows for all 12 laps of the 3.40-mile Circuit of The Americas.
After 12 frantic laps, the top three crossed the line with less than half a second separating race winner Josh Herrin from third-placed Bobby Fong, with Cameron Beaubier sandwiched between the two. To make things even more interesting, the top three were on different brands of motorcycles: Ducati (Herrin), BMW (Beaubier), and Yamaha (Fong).
With the 2026 MotoAmerica Superbike Championship reaching a boiling point with just four races left in the championship, including tomorrow’s race two at COTA, only 18 points separate the top three in the chase for the crown.
Of the three, Herrin needed the win the most as he came into the COTA round trailing Fong by 27 points. That deficit is now down to 18. With his second-place finish today, Beaubier also gained on Fong. The five-time MotoAmerica Superbike Champion is now just 13 points behind.
Warhorse HSBK Racing Ducati’s Herrin did most of the leading. Tytlers Cycle Racing’s Beaubier had a few shots at leading, but couldn’t make it stick, and Attack Performance Progressive Yamaha Racing’s Fong never led, but was always in earshot of whoever was leading.
It came down to the final couple of corners with Fong trying a desperation pass that didn’t work on Beaubier, who also made a last-ditch effort that saw him run off track, but he still had enough of a gap to beat Fong for second – by .031 of a second.
Late in the race it was Vision Wheel M4 ECSTAR Suzuki’s Richie Escalante who was making the most noise as he was fourth and making inroads to the top three at a clip of half a second a lap. On the final lap, however, it all came apart as Escalante crashed out.
That left Real Steel Honda’s Hayden Gillim in fourth place, some four seconds ahead of Vision Wheel M4 ECSTAR Suzuki’s Sean Dylan Kelly.
Gillim’s teammate JD Beach ended up sixth, which also gave him the victory and the Superbike Cup Championship – for those racing Stock 1000-spec motorcycles in the Superbike class.
FLOLAW’s Benjamin Smith was seventh with Jones Honda’s Ashton Yates eighth. Aftercare Scheibe Racing’s Danilo Lewis was ninth with Fong’s teammate Jake Gagne remounting and rounding out the top 10. Gagne was battling in the lead group when he crashed on the fifth lap.
Superbike Unlimited Racing’s Max Stauffer was 11th, with the Australian making his MotoAmerica debut this weekend at COTA.
Superbike Race 1
- Josh Herrin (Ducati)
- Cameron Beaubier (BMW)
- Bobby Fong (Yamaha)
- Hayden Gillim (Honda)
- Sean Dylan Kelly (Suzuki)
- JD Beach (Honda)
- Benjamin Smith (Yamaha)
- Ashton Yates (Honda)
- Danilo Lewis (BMW)’
- Jake Gagne (Yamaha)
Bobby Fong – Third Place
“I hate to do stuff like that, really,” Fong said of his desperation attempt at passing Beaubier. “He’s a good buddy of mine. I know he’s going to return the favor soon. It does suck, but I had to go for it. I knew Richie (Escalante) was coming behind me. That’s the thing. I didn’t know how close he was. I didn’t know he crashed. I could see on my pit board that he was literally catching us half a second a lap. So, I’m like, ‘I need to go.’ But I know once I get in a battle with them it’s going to slow the overall pace up, and then it will be four dudes fighting for the win. So, I didn’t really know what to do. But I knew I had to do something at the last two turns because I knew Richie was going to go for the podium for sure. But these two dudes rode great. I’m happy to be close to them at this track for sure. It was a long, hot one. I know they’re injured. I’m looking forward to New Jersey, for sure.”
Cameron Beaubier – Second Place
“Honestly, I was riding behind (Josh) Herrin and I felt like I had a little pace, but then when I did get up front I was starting to push the front around and slide quite a bit. I think the track was just hot and greasy. Honestly, bummed with the second (place). We need to make some points up. At least we made a couple back on Bob (Fong). Josh (Herrin) rode a great race. I tried to do something kind of last minute in the last corner and he scraped me up, which was a good move. I’m glad we’ve got tomorrow to try again. Getting to the wrist thing, I’ve had a pretty bad week. Crashed my bicycle, like I told you, on Saturday last week. Was trying to keep it quiet, but you can’t keep much quiet around the pits. I’m just really happy with my team. Big thanks to them for getting me comfortable on the bike. We had to change the seating position up and the bars a little bit just to get me through the weekend. Honestly, I’m happy that I’m even racing because Tuesday was a different story. I was kind of scratching my head if I’d be able to ride or not. Thanks to Dr. Price for helping me out this weekend also. Also Dr. Brian. I said some stuff to him, and he got in touch with Dr. Price and told me what I needed to do for the weekend, so thanks to those guys. On to tomorrow.”
Josh Herrin – Winner
“I told my guys, best-case scenario, obviously is Cam (Beaubier) getting second and Bobby (Fong) getting third because it allows me to gain some points on Bobby. I was in a position this year that was different than a lot of times. I guess I was in it last year too, but I let it get to me a little bit too much this year. Just sometimes where I could have taken some risk to try to get a win, I just settled instead. Not to say I would have got the win, but I would have tried a little bit harder. But it was just kind of like, ‘We’re safe.’ I think it just got to my head, which is weird because it hasn’t in the past. I don’t know. I’m just using that. I’m hoping that’s what it was, because going into this weekend, I just wanted to think about trying to get wins again and not care about the championship and kind of play into that underdog role and just try to attack. Just try to have fun in practice, qualifying, race. Just have fun and go out there, screw around. It seemed to work. Today we made a big gamble, and we went with the (Dunlop) R7, which obviously we won but it was super risky. In that race, obviously, you know that the pace was not the best. I was just trying to hold them off as much as I could. I honestly thought they were going to come by and just fly by. When Cam came by, I just threw the kitchen sink at him to try to get it and was able to get that lap time. I think tomorrow the R5 will help us out a little bit and especially with how greasy it is. So, it was a crazy last couple weeks. I was pretty down in the dumps, like I talked to you about. I knew that I threw it away, because all I needed to do was just go get some points on the weekends where I wasn’t feeling like I could get a win, and instead I just went out and pushed harder than maybe I should have and just made some mistakes. Just trying to claw my way back as much as I can and, hopefully, we can be in it at the end.”
More, from a news release issued by MotoAmerica:
Fast on Friday, a new lap record and pole position on Saturday morning, and a runaway lights-to-flag victory on Saturday afternoon. So far, it’s not a bad weekend to be Mathew Scholtz.
Strack Racing’s Scholtz, who earlier in the day broke Garrett Gerloff’s Supersport lap record that had stood since 2016, led every lap of Saturday’s race at Circuit of The Americas, crossing the finish line a tick over 10 seconds ahead of his nearest pursuer.
The early laps saw the top four together with Scholtz always leading, and with Celtic/Economy Lube + Tire/Warhorse HSBK Ducati’s Cameron Petersen, Rahal Ducati Moto w/XPEL’s PJ Jacobsen and his Strack Racing teammate Blake Davis giving chase.
The four ran in formation for the first five laps, but the foursome was broken up when Petersen had a huge highside on the exit of the left-hander that leads to the long backstraight. The crash cost Davis, as well, as he had to take evasive action and lost his hold on third place to Jacobsen.
Davis, however, didn’t give up, and the battle for second place turned into a good one as Jacobsen hit a false neutral, ran wide, and allowed Davis to catch up. From there it was a battle to the end between the two, with Davis beating Jacobsen by a scant .194 of a second.
Scholtz, meanwhile, crossed the finish line with some 10 seconds in hand, happy to have won his eighth Motovation Supersport race of the year, and also pleased that his teammate Davis took valuable points away from Jacobsen in the title chase.
Behind the top three came a battle for fourth between Vision Wheel M4 ECSTAR Suzuki’s Tyler Scott and Jacobsen’s teammate Kayla Yaakov. Despite running off the track on two occasions, Scott was able to beat Yaakov to the line by .106 of a second.
With his win and Jacobsen’s third-place finish, Scholtz now leads the New Yorker by 16 points, 308-292. Davis is third with 230 points.
‘We’ve kind of seen throughout the season that if I have a bit of a gap in the first practice on Friday, then I’m able to kind of keep that pace going,” Scholtz said. “But it just seemed like every single session we went out there, everyone picked up massive time. Not just .2, .3. It was like .6, .7. It was one of those kinds of tracks. Honestly, in today’s race, I thought that I would have had the pace, and I would have been gone. By lap five or six, it was still G3 or G4 and I kind of knew that these guys were there. I wasn’t panicking, but I was like, ‘I’m going to have to kind of pick it up.’ I did a 12.5 and a 12.6 back-to-back, and I felt like I had one or two tenths left. Then one lap across the line and it was plus two or three seconds. So, I kind of just chilled in the high 12s, low 13s, and just kind of eked out the gap a little bit. Overall, the bike has been working great. COTA has always been a really good circuit for me. For once when I won, PJ (Jacobsen) wasn’t second. It seems like he’s been doing that most of the season. So, it was nice to kind of get those extra points. Overall, I know that these boys are coming in the second race tomorrow, so I’m going to have to pick up something.”
Mission King Of The Baggers – Gillim’s Day, Wyman’s Year
RevZilla/Motul/Vance & Hines Harley-Davidson’s Hayden Gillim was nothing short of untouchable in Saturday’s Mission King Of The Baggers race one. Gillim, who dominated the Mission King Of The Baggers Challenge on Saturday morning, led the race that really counted on Saturday afternoon from start to finish.
While Gillim scored his second win in what has been a rough season for the Kentuckian, his win was overshadowed by Kyle Wyman’s fourth-place finish that resulted in him taking the 2025 Mission King Of The Baggers Championship – his second title in the class.
So, is 2025 the best year of Wyman’s life?
“By far,” Wyman said. “Hannah (his wife) and I welcomed our first child. He’s five weeks old. He’s here this weekend. KWR (Kyle Wyman Racing)… we won the Super Hooligan title at Mid-Ohio, and now we have the King Of The Baggers Championship. So, it’s definitely a dream year. It’s hard to dream up anything better than that.
With Gillim out front, the final few laps saw a battle for second between S&S/Indian Motorcycle’s Loris Baz and RevZilla/Motul/Vance & Hines Harley-Davidson’s Rocco Landers. At the finish line, it was Baz getting the nod over Landers by .111 of a second.
With Wyman fourth, fifth and sixth went to his teammates Bradley Smith and James Rispoli, respectively.
Baz’s teammate Troy Herfoss gutted it out, with the Australian suffering with an injured shoulder and cracked pelvis to finish seventh.
With three races left to run, Wyman has an insurmountable points lead of 90 over Baz, 240-150. Herfoss holds on to third with 133 points.
Stock 1000 – Beach Stays Alive In Title Chase After Thriller
A thrilling Stock 1000 race went to Real Steel Honda’s JD Beach after a race-long dogfight with OrangeCat Racing’s Jayson Uribe that went to the last corner on the final lap. The win also gave Beach another day of life in the championship fight as points leader Andrew Lee and his OrangeCat Racing BMW finished fourth.
Lee now leads Beach by 14 points with only tomorrow’s race at Circuit of The Americas remaining in the Stock 1000 Championship, 176-162. Uribe is third with 154 points.
The margin of victory was .590 of a second, but it was actually much closer than that as Beach was on the inside going into the final corner and Uribe ended up in no-man’s land on the exit while Beach wheelied to victory. The pair were glued together for the majority of the race, with Uribe doing most of the leading.
Third place went to Jones Honda’s Ashton Yates by 3.2 seconds over Lee, who is obviously thinking about the championship at this point.
RevZilla/Motul/Vance & Hines Suzuki’s Rocco Landers was 2.3 seconds behind Lee and some 13 seconds ahead of BPR Racing Yamaha’s Bryce Kornbau, who emerged from a pack of five riders to finish sixth.
Kornbau’s teammate Deion Campbell was seventh, with Castrol/Lamkin Racing’s Nolan Lamkin, Edge Racing’s Jason Waters, and PDR Motorsports’ Diego Perez rounding out the top 10 finishers.
“That was a great race,” Beach said. “Jayson (Uribe) was riding phenomenal. It was all I could do to stay with him. We were just going back and forth. He had areas on the track where he was stronger and there were areas where I was stronger. I was a little desperate the last lap, trying to do the passes and just kind of making them stick. The last two turns, it was just good racing. I gave Jayson a few (taps to the head) to think about that. But honestly, I would have done the same thing. It was just the heat of the moment. But he races clean every time we go out on track, and I love racing with him. I’ve got nothing against him or the team. It was just a great race. I’ve got to thank my American Honda bike. It was a good day, but it’s going to be a fight tomorrow. We’re still in it. We’ve still got a long shot. I’m going to get hydrated, go out there and race Superbikes, and these guys better be ready for tomorrow.”
Parts Unlimited Talent Cup By Motul – Super Di Mario
Warhorse Ducati/American Racing’s Alessandro di Mario has one hand on the 2025 Parts Unlimited Talent Cup By Motul Championship number-one plate after earning his sixth win of the season on Saturday at COTA.
Di Mario led from start to finish in the seven-lap race while those around him stumbled.
It started with Di Mario’s main challenger of late having a problem right off the start as Tytlers Cycle Racing’s Hank Vossberg had an issue off the start that left him well behind. He would finish 12th, a lap behind Di Mario.
Real Steel Honda’s Ian Fraley also had early issues and dropped down to 11th by the time the race finished. Roadracing World Young Guns’ Kensei Matsudaira was another to suffer a mechanical issue, as he was out of the race on the first lap.
Team Roberts’ Kody Kopp had something go wrong that caused his Krämer to slide violently, with Kopp using all of his flat track skills to make an impressive save from crashing. He was out of the race, however.
That left Di Mario to ride to victory, 3.8 seconds ahead of Jones Honda’s Bodie Paige at the finish line.
There was more action on the final lap with MP13 Racing’s Ella Dreher and Yamaha BLU CRU Estenson Racing’s Sam Drane going at it in the fight for third. It came down to the final corner with both riders crashing out. Drane was able to remount to finish third, with Dreher taking more time and ending up eighth.
With Di Mario winning, Paige finishing second, and Drane recovering for third, a popular fourth-place finish went to Ice Barn Racing’s Solly Mervis, with the youngster turning in his best result of the season. Mervis was 1.4 seconds ahead of Bettencourt Racing’s Nathan Bettencourt, who rounded out the top-five finishers.
“I got a great start, so that’s what I wanted to do,” Di Mario said. “I was able to lead from lap one all the way to the end. So, I just can’t thank the Warhorse HSBK team enough. The bike felt amazing all weekend. I just want to thank all my sponsors. KYT, Dainese, and the team, my parents, Moto Liberty, and just everyone that’s helped me out. It is hot out there.”
Di Mario now leads Drane by 53 points, 229-176, heading into tomorrow’s race two. Paige jumps to third with 158 points, one point ahead of Vossberg. Dreher rounds out the top five in the title chase with 109 points.
