Attack Performance Progressive Insurance Yamaha’s Jake Gagne put his YZF-R1 on pole, and Tytlers Cycle Racing’s Cameron Beaubier led for three laps on his BMW M 1000 RR, but it was Warhorse HSBK Ducati’s Josh Herrin on his Panigale V4 R who was in charge for most of the weekend. Herrin led from start to finish in Race Two, finishing the weekend with 50 points and the Championship lead. Herrin now has 20 AMA/MotoAmerica Superbike wins, tied with Fred Merkel for eighth on the overall wins list. Beaubier took second in both races, happy enough with scoring 40 points at a track where he expected to struggle.
Gagne was unable to convert pole positions to wins, but a pair of podiums felt good, as did feeling like he was riding well and fast again, he said. “I’m happy with how I rode. I got to ride hard,” Gagne said. “I feel like I kind of am getting closer to trying to remember how to ride.”
Vision Wheel M4 ECSTAR Suzuki’s Richie Escalante backed up fifth in Saturday’s race with fourth on Sunday. Escalante was less than two seconds off of the podium and less than 10 seconds behind winner Herrin.
Real Steel Honda’s Hayden Gillim had his Saturday race ruined when his CBR 1000 RR-R was hit by the sliding CBR 1000 RR-R of Ashton Yates, but Gillim ran strongly in Race Two, finishing fifth. Gillim ran the race’s fourth-fastest lap and was one of only four riders in the 1:40 range, on a bike that topped out 5.2 mph slower than Beaubier’s BMW, which was fastest through the speed traps at 161.2 mph.
Kira Knebel took all three Royal Enfield Build. Train. Race. victories, even though a nasty crash during Friday’s practice left her bike badly damaged. “I couldn’t be here without the team,” Knebel said, after her crew “rebuilt the entire thing” in time for Saturday’s sessions. “That was a very bad crash, and it’s incredible what they were able to pull off in the time that they (had).”
After riders on Harley-Davidson Pan America 1250 racebikes had locked out the podiums in the first four races of the 2025 season, MotoAmerica raised the minimum weight for the bikes dramatically. In Technical Regulations v6-20-2025, the minimum weight for the Pan America was set at 450 pounds. The Saddlemen Race Development bikes were required to add up to 38 pounds of ballast to meet the minimum weight requirement. The team made a kind of trough out of steel and poured in molten lead and bolted it to the bottom of the bike to bring it up to minimum weight. The minimum weight for machines 1000cc and below is 365 lbs, 377 lbs. for machines over 1000cc and 350 lbs for all air-cooled twins. Still, Pan America-mounted riders took five of the six podiums at The Ridge.
