2024 MotoAmerica Superbike Championship
The Ridge – Saturday
Images by Brian J. Nelson
Superbike Race One
Rain races are difficult. Rain races when you’re not quite sure if they are going to stay wet are even worse. Turns out that the surprise rain on Saturday at Ridge Motorsports Park ended up truly surprising a lot of the field – but not the Attack Performance/Progressive/Yamaha Racing and Vision Wheel M4 ECSTAR Suzuki teams.
The result was a runaway one-two finish for the Yamaha squad with Cameron Petersen beating his teammate Jake Gagne by just .032 of a second in the red-flag-shortened race that was already shortened because of the conditions. The two crews had fitted Dunlop rain tyres to Petersen’s and Gagne’s YZF-R1s and it paid dividends.
Third place went to the other factory team that got it right with Xavi Forés earning his first-career MotoAmerica Steel Commander Superbike podium by splish-splashing his way to third on the Vision Wheel M4 ECSTAR Suzuki with its full Dunlop rain tyres. Forés ended up 9.5 seconds behind the Yamaha duo and some three seconds clear of Team Brazil’s Danilo Lewis with the Superbike Cup series leader also on rains.
The first of those using slick racing tyres was eighth-placed Loris Baz on the Warhorse HSBK Racing Ducati with the Frenchman somehow keeping the Panigale V4 upright to cross the line a minute and 13 seconds off Petersen’s winning pace.
In between Lewis and Baz came AMD Motorsport RK Racing’s Richard Kerr, the Irishman at home in the conditions. Then came Stock 1000 podium finishers Ashton Yates with his Jones Honda and Real Steel Motorsports’ Hayden Gillim in seventh and eighth, respectively.
Forés’s teammate Brandon Paasch had rains fitted and came back from an off-track excursion to finish ninth. He was also given a five-second penalty for working on the bike on the grid.
Some big names who gambled with slicks paid the consequences, including Baz’s teammate Josh Herrin (11th) and Wrench Motorcycles’ Bobby Fong (14th).
Tytlers Cycle Racing’s JD Beach started from pit lane after opting to swap to rain tyres after the warm-up lap. He rode through a lot of the pack to finish 10th, turning in the fifth-fastest lap of the race in the process.
Among the non-finishers were Tytlers Cycle Racing’s Cameron Beaubier and TopPro Racing’s Sean Dylan Kelly, both of whom opted out after starting on slicks and realizing it was a mistake.
With his third win of the season, Petersen jumps to third in the Steel Commander Superbike Championship with 135 points. Gagne, who has been struggling with arm-pump issues, got some reprieve with the rain, and his second-place finish moved him past Fong and into the lead, 150-138.
Ducati teammates Herrin and Baz are fourth and fifth, respectively, 124-109.
Superbike Race One Top Ten Results
- Cameron Petersen – Yamaha
- Jake Gagne – Yamaha +0.032s
- Xavi Fores – Suzuki +9.548s
- Danilo Lewis – BMW +12.521s
- Richard Kerr – Honda +42.676s
- Ashton Yates – Honda +43.852s
- Hayden Gillim – Honda +55.891s
- Loris Baz – Ducati +73.735s
- Brandon Paasch – Suzuki = +87.512
- JD Beach – BMW +1 lap
Superbike Quotes
Cam Petersen – Winner
“Like Jake (Gagne) said, as a team, we kind of sat down and decided to go with the rains and it worked out. It definitely was the right choice. But it was just such a fun race. It’s really fun racing with JG (Gagne) when you know that nothing crazy is going to happen. Nobody is going to throw a shot at you that’s sketchy or dangerous. It was funny because literally, like Jake said, we locked eyes going down the straightaway. I looked into his eyes, and I just started cracking up. The team did an incredible job in the short amount of time they had, with getting the bike somewhat into a wet setting. Just a good day overall. Third win on the season. I think coming into this season, I only had three Superbike wins. So, super stoked to get that in one season. Just looking forward to tomorrow. Looking forward to a dry race. I’ve felt good all weekend here, so I think tomorrow should be a good one and a dogfight. Congrats to these two boys for being on the podium. Congrats to Xavi (Forés) on his first (MotoAmerica) Superbike podium. Let’s go get it tomorrow.”
Jake Gagne – Second Place
“The little sighting lap thing we had, it was already really sketchy. Just to kind of be safer, I thought it would be a good call. It was a tough call, but these bikes work really good in the rain. Like Xavi (Forés) said, it was only 10 aps, so even if it started drying, we could just burn up that tyre. Fortunately for us, it kept raining. It got really, really tricky even on rains there at the end. Hats off to Cam (Petersen). It was fun racing him down to the wire again. Red flag caught me by surprise, too. I only saw his hand. But good day. Obviously, it’s been a tough couple races. To be back on the podium is good. One, two for the team is awesome. So, we’ll see what happens tomorrow.”
Xavi Forés – Third Place
“Honestly, when I saw the race distance was 10 laps, it was still light rain. I said, ‘We have to take the chance to go with wet.’ Also, I saw the guys (Petersen and Gagne) putting the rain tyres and said, ‘Let’s do the same.’ It was not a very long-distance race. The track was a bit tricky at the beginning. If you got the chance to get the gap at the beginning with the rain tyres, by the time they are catching you, the race is nearly finished. Then we had also a red flag. So, it was a little bit of a gamble, but we managed quite well. I was happy. The first part of the race, I tried to follow them, but I was taking so much risk. I was spinning a lot. We didn’t have the chance to go softer with the springs in the rear, so I said, let’s take this podium back home and get the feeling and start here. Tomorrow, maybe if it’s dry, we’re going to have another chance to stay in the top five. We made some good changes this weekend. I changed nearly the whole bike from yesterday to today. The pace is there, so I’m very happy. After Brainerd when I crashed, my shoulder is still not 100 percent. To be here on the podium is good. Pretty happy. Looking for more, for sure.”
Super Hooligans Race One
Two races were held in the rain on Saturday afternoon at Ridge Motorsports Park and the last race of the day was the wettest – the second round of the Mission Super Hooligan National Championship. The racer who took the most advantage of the conditions was KWR’s Cody Wyman, with the youngest of the three Wyman brothers riding to a 7.9-second win over his teammate Hayden Schultz.
For Wyman it was his first career Super Hooligan victory, and it also made him the first rider in MotoAmerica history to score a podium finish in four different classes – Junior Cup, Twins Cup, Stock 1000 and the Mission Super Hooligan National Championship.
Schultz was happy with second on his Kyle Wyman-owned Harley-Davidson Pan America with the Arkansas resident 5.3 seconds ahead of S&S Cycle/Indian Motorcycle’s defending series champion Tyler O’Hara who battled with a surging throttle for the entire race to finish on the podium.
Roland Sands Design’s Hawk Mazzotta was a career-high fourth in the class, some five seconds ahead of Travis Wyman.
With the win, Cody Wyman takes over the championship points lead, 54-49, over O’Hara. Cory West, who led the title chase after Daytona, slips to third with 41 points after crashing out of today’s race.
“For sure, happy to see the rain,” Wyman said. “We were pretty far behind from yesterday. Like I said, we really missed out on a lot of track time. Mostly my fault. But Hayden (Schultz) really stepped up as a teammate to help me with gearing and just get me back up to speed. We’ve learned so much in just a few days really riding these Pan Americas. This learning curve is really steep at first. So, we’re really getting a lot out of these bikes. Stoked with the rain. I always love the rain. I knew that would help me kind of get a little bit more equal to the guys up front. Crazy race, though. Everyone was dealing with their own little issues, maybe more than others. But I knew this place was good in the rain. So, I had some confidence. I’ve done a lot of Champ schools here and ridden in the rain on DOTs. It was the longest four-lap race I’ve ever had. Just so thankful for Harley-Davidson and for my brother for doing so much. Gene Burcham building the bikes. I didn’t expect to be winning today. So, pretty awesome.”
Image by Brian J. Nelson
Troy Herfoss, who was second in the title chase coming into this round, only did four laps on Friday before his Indian had a technical issue and he only completed two laps on a track he’d never seen before. The Australian got up to speed on Saturday morning, posting the fifth best time in qualifying. Herfoss held that fifth place early on in the race before crashing on the sodden track. It took Herf some time to get to his feet and lift up his damaged FTR. That race was red-flagged a couple of laps later and restarted after a lengthy break. Second time around Herfoss was faring a little better before suffering mechanical problems late in the race. The DNF on Saturday for Herfoss has seen him slip to fourth place in the championship, 18-points behind leader Cody Wyman.
Super Hooligans Race One
- Cody Wyman – HD
- Hayden Schultz – HD +7.997s
- Tyler O’Hara – Indian +13.212s
- Hawk Mazzotta – Indian +16.094s
- Travis Wyman – HD +19.240s
- Jeff Lane – KTM +39.424s
- Jordan Eubanks – KTM +40.292s
- Stefano Mesa – ENE +40.545s
- Andrew Berkley – KTM +51.181s
- Adam Mendoza – KTM +58.539s
Supersport Race One
Strack Racing’s Mathew Scholtz took over at the top of the Supersport Championship point standings for the first time this season on Saturday at Ridge Motorsports Park with the South African beating series rival PJ Jacobsen and his Rahal Ducati Moto Panigale V2 by 2.1 seconds.
The race was a battle with as many as seven riders at the front in the early going, but that whittled down to four and ultimately three. And then there was one with Scholtz taking his fifth win of the year and his third in a row to move into the lead in the championship standings by just three points over Jacobsen.
Third place went to the impressive Kayla Yaakov with the Rahal Ducati Moto racer landing on the Supersport podium for the second time in her career and the first in dry racing conditions.
Well, not completely dry as there were spits of rain throughout the race, but never enough for rain tyres to be even a consideration. This one was definitely a dry race and she ranked it above her first podium last year in the rain at New Jersey Motorsports Park.
“This was a real podium,” Yaakov said after battling with the best of the best.
Yaakov ended up just 4.5 seconds from the lead as she’s finally found a set-up with the Rahal Ducati Moto Panigale V2 that she’s comfortable with.
Altus Motorsports’ Jake Lewis came out on top of a three-rider battle for fourth, besting Tytlers Cycle Racing’s Stefano Mesa by just .162 of a second and .384 of a second over Vision Wheel M4 ECSTAR Suzuki’s Teagg Hobbs.
Wrench Motorcycles’ David Anthony, Vision Wheel M4 ECSTAR Suzuki’s Tyler Scott, Rahal Ducati Moto’s Corey Alexander and N2 Racing/BobbleHeadMoto’s Blake Davis rounded out the top 10.
Mathew Scholtz
“It was a bit of a weird one. Obviously, my starts sucked, as usual. Kayla (Yaakov) cut me off good. It was crazy. I think her and Corey (Alexander) touched and I kind of got bogged down a little bit. Made my way up to third or second following PJ (Jacobsen) and Tyler (Scott). I felt comfortable. I think we were doing 44.8s by then. I was like, ‘This feels slow, guys. Come on.’ Then I got up to first and I was doing 44.5s. I was riding over my head. I was almost highsiding coming out of corners, losing the front. It was just a difficult race. I think that when you followed somebody, it felt comfortable doing it, but when you got to the front, you couldn’t really know how much harder you could push. When it’s like that, you lose grip extremely quickly. You don’t really feel what the bike is doing. I don’t have enough torque to keep the rear tyre spinning coming out of the corners. So, once I lose it, it goes really, really quick. I had a pretty decent moment at 13 at the top of the hill. Then I kind of settled into a pace and was doing high 44, low 45, which is a lot slower than we had been going. But overall, I was getting worried with about seven laps to go, that it was only .3 of a gap. So, I was thinking maybe I should let PJ pass me and we would just battle out in the final lap. Then I think with maybe five laps to go, I started picking up the pace and opened it up to a second gap. I kind of knew that it was my race to lose from then. Overall, just looking forward to having a fully dry race tomorrow and doing 42s and 43s, what we should be doing. Not like nearly crashing doing 46s out there. So that was a sketchy one, but obviously happy to take the championship lead. I think that the team have been working hard and they deserve this right now.”
Supersport Race One Top Ten
- Mathew Scholtz – Yamaha
- PJ Jacobsen – Ducati +2.192s
- Kayla Yaakov – Ducati +4.591s
- Jake Lewis – Suzuki +9.817s
- Stefano Mesa – Kawasaki +9.979s
- Teagg Hobbs – Suzuki +10.201s
- David Anthony – Suzuki +18.683s
- Tyler Scott – Suzuki +27.147s
- Corey Alexander – Ducati +28.990s
- Blake Davis – Yamaha +30.054s
Stock 1000 Race One
Real Steel Motorsports’ Hayden Gillim won his fourth race of the five-race-old Stock 1000 season at Ridge Motorsports Park on Saturday with the defending series champion winning by a controlled 2.4 seconds on his Honda CBR1000RR-R SP.
The man who kept Gillim in check was OrangeCat Racing’s Jayson Uribe with the Californian earning his second podium of the season and just one race removed from his first-career Stock 1000 victory at Brainerd International Raceway two weeks ago.
Third place went to Jones Honda’s Ashton Yates with the Georgian trailing Motorsport Exotica’s Andrew Lee for most of the race before making his move on Lee and his BMW M1000 RR. The podium was Yates’ third in a row. Lee had his best finish of what has been a difficult season thus far with fourth-place.
FLO4Law Racing’s Benjamin Smith came out on top of a battle with Visit Indiana/Tom Wood Powersports’ Nolan Lamkin with those spending a lot of the race right at the tail of the Yates/Lee battle.
Gillim crashed out of race two at Brainerd a few weeks ago and he learned a lesson from that.
Hayden Gillim
“After that race at Brainerd, I told everybody at the team, ‘Hey, I need y’all to keep my head on straight.’ We’re racing Stock 1000, not trying to chase the Superbike times, necessarily. We can do it in practice and everything, but the races need to be a little bit more controlled. So, I tried to do that, but Jason was pushing me. I wanted to push a little harder and see what I could do, but also, I have been having some little moments on the front here and there and didn’t want to override it. I knew if I could get through a couple spots pretty good, it would be really hard to make a pass. So, I just felt like if I was consistent and kept my lines tight, ran everything smooth, was getting off the corners good, I thought I could at least keep them behind me. I knew with the track being a little cooler maybe the tyres would go off a bit. I felt pretty good once that started happening this weekend. So, I felt like once we could get to that point, maybe I could get a little bit of a gap. But it was a good race. I’m happy. I’m most happy just about my starts this year. Everything has been going good right off the line. So, as long as I can keep that up, it makes my life a little bit easier. The whole Steel Commander Southern Powersports Honda team has given me a really great bike this whole year. The Honda has been really good. It surprised me a bunch right from the beginning how good the thing was. I expected there to be a little bit more of a learning curve for me. It’s been really good. I’m loving it. I’m enjoying riding. The thing is super, super competitive. I’m just having fun. Got the family with me at all the races. We’re making a little road trip out of this West Coast swing. Just enjoying it.”
Stock 1000 Race One Top Ten
- Hayden Gillim – Honda
- Jayson Uribe – BMW +2.416s
- Ashton Yates – Honda +21.070s
- Andrew Lee – BMW +22.685s
- Benjamin Smith – Yamaha +23.604s
- Nolan Lamkin – BMW +25.388s
- Danilo Lewis – BMW +32.694s
- Bryce Prince – Yamaha +33.333s
- Richard Kerr – Honda +34.982s
- Travis Wyman – BMW +41.673s
Royal Enfield Build Train Race One
Mikayla Moore won her fourth race of the five-race-old season on Saturday in the Royal Enfield Build. Train. Race. and she did so in typical Mikayla Moore fashion. By a country mile.
Moore led by 10 seconds after three laps, 15 seconds after four laps… you get the picture. At the end of the eight-lap race, she was almost 34 seconds clear after setting a new lap record with a 2:02.801.
Aubrey Credaroli crashed out of second after battling with Camille Conrad and that handed Conrad her fourth podium finish of the season while also moving her to second in the championship.
Third place went to podium-first-timer Kira Knebel, some three seconds behind Conrad and well clear of Emma Betters, who was bouncing back from a big crash on Friday. Miranda Cain rounded out the top five finishers.
So how does Moore motivate herself?
“Being out there, being in the front, I know if I’m able to set the pace for the group, if they want to come along with me, they can,” Moore said. “I really don’t start picking up speed until probably the second lap. So, the first lap is really just getting through the first few corners and then once I cross the finish line, it’s on to racing. There have been times like last year at Ridge, Kayleigh (Buyck) stuck with me pretty much the whole time. So, for me, it’s really just about setting lap records to show anyone else that comes to this track on a Royal Enfield that that should be your goal, to be able to beat my lap record.”
Royal Enfield Build Train Race One Top Ten
- Mikayla Moore
- Camille Conrad +34.514s
- Kira Knebel +37.323s
- Emma Betters +59.522s
- Mirandi Cain +69.844s
- Shea MacGregor +77.838s
- Holly Varey +102.292s
- Kate West +111.807s
- Cassier Creer +1 lap
