ELKHART LAKE, Wis. — A red-hot Cameron Beaubier struts his way into Wisconsin this week, hoping to maintain the advantage he currently holds after a near-perfect beginning to his quest for a sixth MotoAmerica Superbike Championship as the series heads into round three at Road America, May 30-June 1.
How hot is hot? There have been 100 points handed out from the opening two rounds of the 2025 MotoAmerica Superbike Championship. Beaubier and his Tytlers Cycle Racing BMW M 1000 RR have snatched 95 of those 100 points.
Thus, with three wins and a second-place finish on his scorecard from the first four races, Beaubier is in the catbird seat as the series heads to “America’s National Park of Speed.”
After winning race one in the Barber Motorsports Park series opener, Beaubier was beaten in the wet second race by Jake Gagne, proving that Beaubier wasn’t infallible. Then came Road Atlanta, and a clean sweep of the two races for the 31-year-old Californian – and plenty of his rivals’ smiles turned upside down.
But the credo that “it ain’t over til it’s over” definitely applies to motorcycle racing.
After five races in the first two rounds (Barber’s round featured three Superbike races), Beaubier had won three of them, finished second, and had a DNF. Warhorse HSBK Racing Ducati’s Josh Herrin, the man who would march on to the 2024 Superbike title, was sixth and 47 points behind Beaubier.
Then came Road America, and everything changed when Beaubier crashed in the rain and suffered a broken heel that required surgery. Gagne inherited the championship lead and was 18 points ahead of Beaubier. Herrin was 34 points behind in sixth place.
After missing the two races at Brainerd International Raceway and coming back too soon to try and race at Ridge Motorsports Park, Beaubier was on the back foot (his good one). Bobby Fong led the championship by a point over Gagne, who was suffering with carpal tunnel in his wrist and would eventually end his season early. Herrin was up to fourth, just nine points out of first and about to go on a tear, winning five of the last 10 races and finishing on the podium in all but one of the races he didn’t win.
Herrin won the title by 55 points over Beaubier, who somehow clawed his way back to second in the points after his injury. Gagne dropped all the way down to seventh.
So, you can see that a fast start doesn’t mean much if you get injured or have mechanical issues.
It’s way too early for anyone in the Superbike pack to panic, though they must be wary of Beaubier’s pace and how he has been able to dominate the season thus far. He’s in his third year on the BMW, his third year in the Tylers team, and he is comfortable and happy. And a happy and comfortable Beaubier can prove to be unbeatable.
As if three wins out of four races wasn’t enough to make him smile, Beaubier also moved into a tie with Josh Hayes on the all-time AMA wins list across all classes with his 89th victory coming at Michelin Raceway Road Atlanta. Number 90 could come this weekend.
Attack Performance Progressive Yamaha Racing’s Jake Gagne sits second in the title chase with three podium finishes in the first four races in his quest for a fourth MotoAmerica Superbike Championship. Gagne again thrived in the wet conditions of race one at Road Atlanta, finishing a close second to Beaubier. In Sunday’s dry race, Gagne slipped back to fifth. Gagne is 23 points behind Beaubier and 13 ahead of Herrin.
Like last year, Herrin’s start to the season is nothing to write home about. He was third in both races at Road Atlanta on his Warhorse HSBK Racing Ducati Panigale V4 R and looking forward to the wide-open spaces of Road America.
Gagne’s teammate Bobby Fong was fast in Sunday’s dry race at Road Atlanta where he hounded Beaubier in race two, finishing just a tad over two seconds behind him. That came a day after Fong slipped off and remounted, scoring five points for finishing 11th.
Fong is just three points behind Herrin in the title chase and has Vision Wheel M4 ECSTAR Suzuki’s Sean Dylan Kelly breathing down his neck, just four points behind. Kelly carded a pair of fourth-place finishes as he continues to shine on his Suzuki GSX-R1000R.
Real Steel Honda teammates Hayden Gillim and J.D. Beach are sixth and seventh in the title chase, with Beach remaining undefeated in the MotoAmerica Superbike Cup Championship for those racing Stock 1000-spec motorcycles in the Superbike class.
