IRVINE, Calif. — The racers likely to be fighting at the top of the 2025 MotoAmerica Superbike Championship when the series concludes in September, all emerged from round one at Barber Motorsports Park unscathed and with a bountiful points haul, setting things up nicely for round two at Michelin Raceway Road Atlanta this weekend.
The premier MotoAmerica Superbike class will headline a packed weekend of racing at Road Atlanta that will include Motovation Supersport, Mission King Of The Baggers, Stock 1000 and the Mission Super Hooligan National Championship.
At the top of the Superbike point standings as the series pulls into Road Atlanta is Tytlers Cycle Racing’s Cameron Beaubier, the five-time MotoAmerica Superbike Champion and nine-time Road Atlanta Superbike winner. Beaubier won the first of two races at Barber Motorsports Park in the dry before finishing second in a soaking wet race two on his BMW M 1000 RR.
Attack Performance Progressive Yamaha Racing’s Jake Gagne showed at Barber that he’s back to his three-time MotoAmerica Superbike Championship-winning self after suffering through an injury-plagued 2024 that forced him to finish the season at his Colorado home and not at the racetrack for the last two rounds and four races.
Gagne was a solid third in race one and then turned in a masterful display of wet-weather riding in race two that no one else could match as he streaked away from the pack for his first win in almost a year, with a winless streak dating back to April 2024 at Road Atlanta.
Beaubier leads Gagne by just four points after the season opener, 45-41.
The experience level of the top two is unmatched, with the pair accounting for a combined eight of the past 10 MotoAmerica Superbike titles, with Toni Elias (2017) and Josh Herrin (2024) the other two champions in the MotoAmerica era.
Gagne’s teammate Bobby Fong comes into Road Atlanta as a factory Yamaha racer for the first time, and he also arrives in Georgia third in the title chase after the opening round in Alabama. Fong was a solid second to Beaubier in the dry race one but slipped down to fifth in the wet race two after struggling with vision issues.
Fong is 14 points behind Beaubier and just four points ahead of defending MotoAmerica Superbike Champion Josh Herrin, who was fifth and third in the two Alabama races. Although the Warhorse HSBK Racing Ducati rider was disappointed with his fifth in race one, he was overjoyed with his first wet-weather podium on the Ducati Panigale V4 R after finishing third in race two. Even though he’s 18 points adrift of Beaubier, there’s no panic in Herrin. After all, he didn’t win his first race in 2024 until the seventh race of the season.
Herrin is just a single point ahead of Vision Wheel M4 ECSTAR Suzuki’s Sean Dylan Kelly, with the young Floridian impressive in his first weekend on the team’s Suzuki GSX-R1000R. Kelly posted identical fourth-place finishes in the two Barber races, albeit it in widely different conditions, showing that the change from last year’s BMW to the Suzuki hasn’t fazed him.
Hayden Gillim’s Real Steel Honda CBR1000RR-R SP should be better than the one he raced to sixth and eighth in the season opener as Gillim was hopeful of getting more Superbike hop-up parts prior to Road Atlanta.
Meanwhile, Gillim’s teammate, J.D. Beach, rode his Stock 1000-spec Honda to eighth and seventh in the two Superbike races, putting him just a point behind his teammate. Those two finishes equaled two wins in the Superbike Cup point standings with Beach off to a fast start in the class within a class for Stock 1000-spec motorcycles. Beach leads BPR Racing’s Deion Campbell by 14 points after just one round.
Beach will make his Stock 1000 debut at Road Atlanta in what will be the opening round for that class.
Thrashed Bike Racing’s Max Flinders had two solid results to start his season at Barber with 11th- and 10th-place finishes netting him eighth in the title chase after one round.
Kelly’s Vision Wheel M4 ECSTAR Suzuki teammate Richie Escalante had a rough start to his 2024 season with a crash in race one and a sixth-place finish in race two.
FLO4LAW/SBU Racing’s Benjamin Smith was sixth in race one but crashed out in the tricky conditions of race two. The Pennsylvanian rounds out the top 10 in the championship as the series heads to the iconic 2.54-mile Road Atlanta.
