ELKHART LAKE, Wis. — OrangeCat Racing’s Sean Dylan Kelly claimed his first Quad Lock Superbike victory of the season on Sunday at Road America, capitalizing on the misfortune of Strack Racing Yamaha’s Mathew Scholtz to leave Wisconsin with a one-point championship lead.
With Warhorse HSBK Ducati Flo4Law rider Cameron Beaubier sidelined by a shoulder injury suffered in Saturday’s race one, Rahal Ducati Moto with XPEL’s P.J. Jacobsen started from the pole position with his Ducati Panigale V4 R and led the opening lap ahead of JD Beach’s Attack Performance Progressive Yamaha Racing YZF-R1 and Sean Dylan Kelly’s BMW M 1000 RR.
The front of the field quickly formed into a high-speed freight train of six riders, while Beach briefly took the lead on lap two before Jacobsen responded. Just two laps into the race, the riders running first through sixth were separated by less than half a second, creating a clear gap to the riders behind.
Wrench Motorcycles’ Cameron Petersen was one of the race’s biggest movers, charging from 14th on the grid to join the tail of the lead group by lap three on his Ducati Panigale V4 R.
The race took a dramatic turn on lap four when Scholtz’s Yamaha YZF-R1 suffered an engine failure in the Moraine Sweep. White smoke poured from the machine as the championship leader coasted to a stop near turn five and retired from the race while running sixth.
At the front, Kelly, Jacobsen, Beach and his teammate Bobby Fong, and Petersen broke away from the field, consistently turning laps in the low 2:10 range while building an eight-second gap over Mission Foods M4 ECSTAR Suzuki rider Richie Escalante aboard his Suzuki GSX-R1000R who was running sixth.
With four laps remaining, Kelly and Jacobsen created a small cushion over the riders behind them. The battle for the final podium position was decided in the closing laps when Fong made an aggressive pass on his teammate Beach in the chicane before Canada Corner.
The order remained unchanged to the checkered flag, with Kelly earning his first Superbike victory of the season ahead of Jacobsen in second and Fong in third.
Notably, each of the podium finishers is not 100% healthy. Kelly is nursing a fractured fingertip on his braking hand, Jacobsen has a mangled finger on his clutch hand, and Fong has a torn rotator cuff from a crash while he was training aboard his motocross bike a few weeks ago.
Beach finished fourth, while race one winner, Wrench Motorcycles Cameron Petersen, completed an impressive ride from 14th on the grid to finish fifth on his Ducati Panigale V4 R.
Behind the lead group was a heated battle for sixth between Escalante and Real Steel Honda’s Hayden Gillim aboard his Honda CBR1000RR-R Fireblade SP. As Escalante led Gillim out of Turn 13, it appeared he had the advantage but backed out of the throttle as the bike wheelied at the crest of the Road America front straight, curtailing just enough of his momentum to hand sixth to Gillim at the line by just two one-thousandths of a second.
Kelly now leads Scholtz by a single championship point with Fong 26 points back in third, effectively resetting the championship after Scholtz’s early domination.
Real Steel Honda’s Andrew Lee finished first in Superbike Cup for the fourth straight race and tightened his stranglehold on the points lead aboard his Honda CBR1000RR-R Fireblade SP. He now holds a 63-point lead over Super Carl Racing 57 Rider Development’s Carl Soltisz, also aboard a Honda CBR1000RR-R Fireblade SP.
