LEEDS, Ala. — The Quad Lock Superbike Championship completed race one at Barber Motorsports Park with Mathew Scholtz taking the win aboard his Strack Racing Yamaha YZF-R1.
Scholtz came from second on the grid and quickly jumped out front before a red flag halted his progress. On the restart, Scholtz ripped another blistering start and led the remaining eight laps of the red-flag-shortened event to take the win by over four seconds.
Cameron Beaubier started on pole and finished second aboard his Warhorse HSBK Ducati Flo4Law Panigale V4 R. Before the red flag, Beaubier and Scholtz appeared to be in a class of their own, but a difficult launch on the restart dropped the six-time Superbike Champion to fourth entering turn one. Forced to fight back through traffic to reclaim second position, Beaubier lost valuable ground to Scholtz and ultimately ran out of laps to challenge for the win.
As Beaubier tried to run down Scholtz in the waning laps, the battle for the final podium spot was heating up between four riders.
The Attack Performance Progressive Yamaha Racing duo of JD Beach and Bobby Fong were leading a close group that included M4 ECSTAR Suzuki rider Richie Escalante and Real Steel Honda’s Hayden Gillim. Beach came out on top with the final podium spot, passing his teammate Fong on the run to the checkers to put his Yamaha YZF-R1 on the podium in third position with Fong in fourth.
Richie Escalante recorded his best finish this season coming across the line fifth in race one. The Mexico native took his GSX-R1000R directly into the podium battle during the closing laps and will look to improve towards the top three spots in tomorrow’s race two.
Hayden Gillim started in eighth and brought up the tail end of the leading group, finishing 0.833 of a second behind Escalante in sixth. Gillim kept contact with the podium contending group for the entirety of the race and the Kentuckian continues to make strides toward higher finishes aboard the Honda CBR1000RR-R Fireblade SP.
Rounding out the top finishers in Quad Lock Superbike was OrangeCat Racing’s Sean Dylan Kelly, who rebounded from a violent crash in qualifying to finish seventh aboard his BMW M 1000 RR, salvaging valuable championship points.
Josh Herrin topped the Supersport race.
