KurveyGirl.com brings you the results of this weekend’s events.
Warhorse HSBK Ducati’s Josh Herrin said he was monitoring his competitors during Saturday’s Superbike race by watching the big screens located around the 4.05-mile Road America circuit. Herrin said he didn’t expect to be able to keep Cameron Beaubier at bay, but the Championship points leader struggled to get his Tytlers Cycle Racing BMW M 1000 RR stopped reliably. Herrin said he was expecting a fight that never came, and when he realized that Beaubier was in trouble, he started to push harder and built a gap that proved to be decisive in the end. Herrin was a bit unhappy with his team showing him a “+0” pit board throughout the race, saying that he knew he had more of a gap and showing him the “+0” board could have led him to push too hard and make a mistake or worse. “I didn’t need the mind games,” Herrin said. On a lighter note, Herrin’s wife gave birth to twin girls earlier in the week, and adding that to a professional racer’s schedule left him a bit overwhelmed. Herrin said he was planning to talk about his family on the podium, but struggled to remember everyone’s name.
It was a day of mixed fortunes for the Vision Wheel M4 ECSTAR Suzuki team. In Superbike, Sean Dylan Kelly qualified on the front row, although a technical issue with the clutch left him mired in the field, and he crashed trying to make up ground. In Supersport, Tyler Scott qualified on pole, ran with the leaders and finished second after being hit from behind by Cameron Petersen.
Bobby Fong said he was on the verge of crashing the entire race on Saturday and that he pushed as hard as he could from lights to flag. He held off Beaubier for second for as long as he could, and when Beaubier passed him he kept trying, trying to stay with Beaubier as the BMW rider recovered from a flawed start. That meant that when Beaubier went wide in Turn One, Fong was in a position to capitalize. His tenacity paid off with second place. Fong also had an issue with his pit board, as his crew kept showing him “G2,” meaning that he was in a group of two. Fong said he knew Beaubier was behind him, but thought the board meant that someone else was there as well.
Bradley Smith continues to get more comfortable on his factory Harley-Davidson/Dynojet racebike, and the flowing nature of Road America also felt comfortable to the former Grand Prix rider. After qualifying second and finishing second in Saturday’s King of The Baggers race, Smith said the circuit resembled a combination of Assen and Silverstone. It was a milestone for Harley-Davidson, with a lockout of the front row in qualifying and the podium in Saturday’s race. Only Troy Herfoss’ third in the Challenge sprint race on the S&S Indian prevented Harley from taking all of the podium places on offer on Saturday.
More from a news release issued by MotoAmerica:
There are good weeks and there are great weeks. Josh Herrin is having a great one. Just six days after the birth of twin girls, Herrin went out and won his first Superbike race of the year and the 17th of his career on a sunny Saturday at Road America.
Herrin’s 17th career AMA Superbike win moved him out of a tie with three-time 500cc World Champion Wayne Rainey and into a tie with 2006 MotoGP World Champion Nicky Hayden for ninth on the all-time AMA Superbike win list.
Herrin and his Warhorse HSBK Racing Ducati Panigale V4 R led every lap of Saturday’s race as he took advantage of pole-sitter Cameron Beaubier’s miscue in turn one on the opening lap to take a lead he would never relinquish. Herrin, however, didn’t have it easy as Attack Performance Progressive Yamaha Racing’s Bobby Fong stuck with Herrin and the Ducati for the duration.
At the completion of the 12-lap race, Herrin was 2.827 seconds ahead of Fong.
Beaubier recovered from his first-turn blunder to gradually reel in both Fong and Herrin. But turn one again was a bogey corner for Beaubier and his Tytlers Cycle Racing BMW M1000 RR. After passing Fong and setting off after Herrin in the closing stages, Beaubier ran wide in turn one again, recovering again to make a final charge at Fong for second place. At the finish line it was Fong by .009 of a second over the five-time MotoAmerica Superbike Champion.
Fong’s teammate Jake Gagne was fourth, 21.5 seconds from the front and some five seconds ahead of fifth-placed Richie Escalante on the Vision Wheel M4 ECSTAR Suzuki. Escalante’s fifth-place finish was a lonely one as Real Steel Honda’s Hayden Gillim was 10 seconds behind in sixth.
Jones Honda’s Ashton Yates raced his Honda to seventh, well clear of BPR Racing’s Bryce Kornbau. Thrashed Bike Racing’s Max Flinders and Aftercare Scheibe Racing’s Danilo Lewis rounded out the top 10 finishers.
Notable non-finishers included MotoAmerica Superbike Cup series leader JD Beach, who pulled out with a clutch issue on his Real Steel Honda, and Vision Wheel M4 ECSTAR Suzuki’s Sean Dylan Kelly, who crashed out in the early laps. FLO4LAW/SBU Racing’s Benjamin Smith was a non-starter after suffering a mechanical failure in qualifying.
Beaubier now leads the championship by 26 points over Gagne, 111-85, with Herrin moving to third – just a point behind Gagne. Fong, with his third runner-up finish of the season, is fourth – eight points behind Herrin. Kelly holds on to fifth, 59 points behind Beaubier.
Josh Herrin – Winner
“If you look back the last couple years, we’ve ran at the front in some races, but I don’t think we’ve won any of the first two rounds for ’23 or ’24,” Herrin said. “I hear the guys on the broadcast saying, ‘When they can let the Ducati loose…’ I’m not saying the Ducati is not a fast bike, but I think this track suits me well. I’ve won on the Yamaha, the Ducati, the Suzuki, and got a podium on the BMW here. So, I’ve had a lot of success just around this track. I like the vibes here. My first pro race was at this track in 2006. So, it’s been a long time. I just feel good here. I do think that this is kind of like our reset, I guess. Obviously, I want to win at the first two rounds. It’s not like I’m not trying. But I’m also just trying to collect some points because I know that we just need to keep our head up and get out of there. So, to get three podiums in the first two rounds out of four, I was stoked with. Then to top it off with a win here, it’s good. I’m happy to win. I always love to win. But for some reason right now, this doesn’t feel like I thought it would. Maybe it’s just because all the stuff that’s been going on this week. I’m tired. Got a lot on my mind. I was like, I want to say something about the babies on the podium, and it was like hard to remember all of the names now. I’m like, ‘I’m going to mess this up.’ But I’m excited. I look at it, but I’ve got so much going on in my mind right now it’s insane. Hats off to the team for working hard and pushing me this weekend. Hopefully tomorrow goes just as good.”
Bobby Fong – Second Place
“It was good. I was riding so hard to try to keep up with them. I think it was the second-to-last lap, I had a big one. I thought I was going down for sure in turn one. Nearly fell off the thing. I thought Cam (Beaubier) was going to blast me. My pit board was saying “G2,” so I thought that there were two people behind me the whole time. So, I’m like, this is it. I’m getting fourth place. I thought there was more people than Cam. So, I just kept pushing and pushing and pushing. Once I had that moment, Cam went by. I’m like, ‘I think my race is over. I have to settle in.’ Then he went wide. He just went super wide into turn one. I thought, here’s my second chance. Got in second, and I thought he was going to get me again. But it was good. This guy kept me on my toes. Both these guys kept me on my toes the whole time. Definitely had a lot of moments out there. I was ready to just send it to the grass for sure plenty of times. But it was good to get some points and move forward to tomorrow.”
Cameron Beaubier – Third Place
“I got a good jump, and then I missed a shift slightly going second to third. Then I sent it off in there a little deeper than I should have in turn one. I felt like I was okay. Then I was going to be about mid track, then I got a big front-end push that sent me off the track. Just kind of blended in as safe as I could. Then, after that, I just did not have the same feeling I did in qualifying and practice. But these guys were putting up a great pace. Josh (Herrin) at the front had to be going 2:10s the whole race. I was in there too and I was slowly crawling back. But, for me, it was just kind of a race of mistakes. I was struggling pretty bad getting the bike stopped. Man, when this BMW is working, it feels so good. But when it’s not quite in its window, it’s a beast to ride. But I’m glad we collected some points, especially after a couple mistakes I had and a couple close calls. I’m glad that we were able to at least salvage some points today.”
Still more from a news release issued by MotoAmerica:
Kyle Wyman led teammates Bradley Smith and James Rispoli to a popular podium sweep of the Mission King Of The Baggers race at Road America on Saturday, with the Harley-Davidson x Dynojet Factory Racing team dominating on a racetrack located just an hour up the road from The Motor Company’s Milwaukee headquarters.
Wyman was fast from the very first practice session and he had pace that the others didn’t seem to have. Fast and confident, the winningest rider in Baggers’ history won his fourth race of the year and the 22nd of his career. The win also built on an already large lead in the championship as the New Yorker now leads the title chase by 48 points over his new-for-2025 teammate Smith, 120-72.
Smith finished second for the second time in his debut season in both the class and the MotoAmerica Championship. In what was his first visit to Road America, the Brit was strong in the race and even closed on Wyman to come up just .255 of a second behind Harley’s team leader after setting the fastest lap of the race on the very last go-around.
Smith, in turn, was 4.2 seconds ahead of Rispoli at the finish. Rispoli was chased to the flag by S&S/Indian Motorcycle’s Tyler O’Hara, RevZilla/Motul/Vance & Hines Harley-Davidson’s Hayden Gillim and defending series champion Troy Herfoss, who was a disappointed sixth.
“We were talking going into this weekend like, I don’t know how we could possibly top last year because of that last-lap battle with Troy (Herfoss), and coming out and getting that win,” Wyman said. “That was the coolest moment. This is even cooler. For all of us to lock this out is an amazing feeling. I think the team has really earned this position that we’re in. We’ve all been working pretty hard. I think that something is just a little bit different this year. This is my fifth season with this program. Having the three of us and the energy that each of us brings to the table and how we’re all working together to put Harley-Davidson on top, we’ve made a big step when we didn’t really think that there was a step this big to be made. So, it’s a great feeling. I don’t even know how the points are, but they’ve got to be just blown apart at this point. I don’t know what to say. I’ve had a lot of close ones. I’ve missed out on it the last three seasons in a row. It feels like ages ago that we got that first one, that three-round championship we had. I feel like we’re in a really good position. But as Bradley (Smith) said, keep working and try to win some more races. But tomorrow is going to be hopefully a repeat. It could happen. We go to work tonight. Try to make the bike even better and see what we can do tomorrow.”
Motovation Supersport – Jacobsen Wins a Thriller
Five riders were in the lead group for the majority of Saturday’s Motovation Supersport race at Road America, with the five narrowing into three on the final lap. The man in the right spot at the right time was Rahal Ducati Moto w/XPEL’s PJ Jacobsen, with the New Yorker taking full advantage of others’ mistakes on the final lap to score his second win of the season and further extend his lead in the championship.
Jacobsen topped Vision Wheel M4 ECSTAR Suzuki’s Tyler Scott by 1.3 seconds with the lead pack getting splintered on the final lap. Strack Racing’s Mathew Scholtz was in the battle for the lead on the last lap when he overshot the chicane while trying to pass Jacobsen. The South African lost second place in the process as he was passed by Scott, but he regained his composure to finish a close third – .070 of a second behind Scott.
A fine fourth went to Kayla Yaakov and her Rahal Ducati Moto w/XPEL Panigale V2. Yaakov ran at the back of the five-rider lead pack and inherited fourth on the final lap when Celtic/Economy Lube+Tire/Warhorse HSBK Ducati’s Cameron Petersen and Scott came together with Petersen forced to take to the escape road on the outside of turn five. Petersen would rejoin to finish fifth after leading the most laps in the race.
Some 10 seconds behind Petersen came a heated battle for sixth with the spot going to BPR Racing’s Teagg Hobbs over Altus Motorsports teammates Jake Lewis and Torin Collins. ADR Racing’s David Anthony and BPR Racing’s Josh Hayes rounded out the top 10.
The race featured plenty of action, and it started on the very first lap when front-row starter Blake Davis and his Strack Racing Yamaha and Scott made contact on the exit of turn five with Davis crashing. Davis would remount to finish 18th.
“It was a pretty crazy race,” Jacobsen said. “It was probably good for the fans to watch. Towards the end there, when me and Mathew (Scholtz) were going into turn five, I was underneath him there and stuff. I kind of knew that Tyler (Scott) and Cam (Petersen) maybe had a little bit of an advantage on us. So, I guess at that point when you go to the last lap and you’re in championship mode and you’re battling with one guy in the championship, you just think about him. So, you’re like, I’ve got to beat him. So then when all that stuff happened, it kind of freed up things. Then I got in a pretty lucky position, to be honest. I just tried to put my head down and go. But I didn’t know how close he (Scholtz) was behind me. I knew someone or him would make a move into the chicane. He went for it. Unfortunately, he just didn’t make the chicane. I think I just got lucky today and was in the right position at the right time to be sitting where I’m at now. But everybody was riding great. It was a good race. I think we have some things to work on for tomorrow because I was struggling in some spots, and I just need to go back and look at some things to try to improve for tomorrow’s race. It will probably be a faster pace and a good race again.”
Jacobsen now leads Scholtz by 17 points, 110-93.
Parts Unlimited Talent Cup By Motul – Drane’s First
Yamaha BLU CRU Estenson Racing’s Sam Drane won his first-career MotoAmerica race with victory on Saturday in the Parts Unlimited Talent Cup By Motul after winning a drafting battle to the finish line.
The race turned into a three-way battle for victory with Drane joined by fellow Australian Bodie Paige and championship points leader Alessandro Di Mario, with just .040 of a second covering the top three.
Early on, it looked as though this was going to be a two-way fight between Warhorse Ducati/American Racing’s Di Mario and CTR/D&D Cycles’ Paige as those two gapped the field.
Meanwhile, three riders crashed together in Canada corner with Royalty Racing’s Carson King, Tytlers Cycle Racing’s Hank Vossberg and Envy Powered by Warhorse’s Derek Sanchez going down. All three were fortunate to escape injury.
Drane went about catching the two ahead of him and he did so, setting the fastest lap of the race and getting to the lead. From there the three swapped the top spot with no one able to gap the other two. It would come down to the final lap and the three could have been covered with a napkin as they crossed the line side by side.
“Me and Bodie (Paige) and Alessandro (Di Mario) were battling all race,” Drane said. “I got a bad start, got put back, and had to fight my way to the front but I ended up getting it done. It was a good race.”
Stock 1000 – Lee Gets It Done
OrangeCat Racing’s Andrew Lee was able to break clear in the early going of the first of two Stock 1000 races at Road America, never made mistakes, and pulled himself clear of the threesome battling for second to take his second victory of the Stock 1000 Championship.
With Andrew clearing off at the front to win by 1.94 seconds, the battle for second went to the finish with Real Steel Honda’s JD Beach taking second from Lee’s teammate Jayson Uribe, with Uribe setting a new lap record with two laps to go. Uribe was second at the time, taking advantage of Beach running wide in turn five, but then Uribe did the same thing on the last lap and Beach pounced. He was just .496 of a second clear of Uribe at the finish, with Uribe .410 of a second ahead of Jones Honda’s Ashton Yates.
BPR Racing Yamaha’s Bryce Kornbau was fourth, some 13 seconds behind the battle for second and well clear of RevZilla/Motul/Vance & Hines Suzuki of Rocco Landers.
Edge Racing’s Jason Waters was right on Landers’ rear wheel at the finish line with 3D Motorsports’ Gabriel Da Silva a few seconds behind. Top Pro Motorsports teammates Alex Arango and Christopher Durbin were 10th and 11th, respectively.
Lee, who came into Road America tied atop the championship point standings with Uribe, pulled away a few points and now leads the title chase by nine points, 70-61, over his teammate.
“I qualified on pole, with a lap record, so I was pretty stoked on that,” Lee said. “We didn’t really change that much for the race and kinda kept it in our own realm. I got out to an early lead, and I knew I had company the whole time. I couldn’t see my pit board, so I just kept my head down and kept trying to pick away at laps. I’m happy to come away with a win today. Obviously, I think the boys will be a challenge tomorrow for sure. Everybody’s riding well, but, yeah, I’m pretty stoked and the OrangeCat team is working its asses off, so I look forward to Sunday.”
Royal Enfield Build.Train.Race. – Knebel’s Second
Kira Knebel kept her perfect win record intact today with her second Royal Enfield Build.Train.Race victory of the season coming in a red-flag-shortened race at Road America. Knebel led all five laps, besting Shea MacGregor by 2.750 seconds.
Miranda Cain rounded out the top three, 3.5 seconds behind, to earn her first podium of the season.
Cassie Creer and Kate West rounded out the top five.
Knebel now leads MacGregor by 10 points, 50-40, with Cain third, 11 points behind MacGregor.
