MONTEREY, Calif. — With three Superbike races and 75 points up for grabs in this weekend’s fifth round at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca, it would be hard to argue that the two days of racing in Monterey could well be the most important weekend of the season for those fighting for the MotoAmerica Superbike Championship.
Warhorse HSBK Racing Ducati’s Josh Herrin and Tytlers Cycle Racing’s Cameron Beaubier have put a bit of distance between themselves and the chasing pack, but the two riders with a combined seven AMA Superbike titles have plenty to worry about trying to beat each other. The two rivals have won seven of the eight Superbike races held thus far.
Herrin makes the trek up the California coast from his home in Temecula with an eight-point lead over Beaubier while riding a four-race win streak.
Beaubier will have a shorter drive south from his home in Lincoln and will be trying to make up ground with a solid points haul from the three Laguna races.
Following his now-normal slow start with a fifth in the opening race of the season, Herrin has been a model of consistency and flat-out speed.
Three straight third-place finishes were followed up by four consecutive victories, the most recent of which was his 20th career AMA Superbike win following a sweep of the two races at Ridge Motorsports Park two weeks ago.
Beaubier’s season so far has been the opposite of Herrin’s. Beaubier got off to a great start, winning three of the first four races and finishing on the podium in the other two.
But a crash while battling with Herrin in race two at Road America cost him dearly as he failed to score a point. He went into the Ridge round ahead by two points and left trailing by eight points after getting beat in both races by Herrin.
Attack Performance Progressive Yamaha Racing’s Jake Gagne seems awfully close to being the Jake Gagne of old as he’s started the season with a win and five total podiums from the eight races.
Gagne was third in both races at Ridge Motorsports Park and had the second-fastest laps in each race. He was only 2.4 seconds behind race winner Herrin at the conclusion of race one.
This time last year, Gagne was struggling mightily with carpal tunnel syndrome and finished ninth in the dry race two at Ridge – 30 seconds behind Herrin.
Gagne was fifth in both races last year at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca, and he knows his way around the track on which he has won five Superbike races in his career.
Gagne comes to Laguna third in points, 26 behind Beaubier and 34 behind Herrin.
Bobby Fong is just eight points behind his Yamaha teammate Gagne, but 42 behind Herrin, who is in his first season with the factory team. Fong has four podium finishes on the season (all second places) but is coming off a less-than-stellar weekend for him at Ridge. Fong was fourth and eighth in the two races in the Pacific Northwest.
Richie Escalante has scored points in every round but the first race of the year way back in April at Barber Motorsports Park. The Vision Wheel M4 ECSTAR Suzuki rider hasn’t finished worse than seventh since his opening-round crash and he finds himself in fifth in the championship, 16 points ahead of Real Steel Honda’s Hayden Gillim and 17 ahead of his own teammate Sean Dylan Kelly.
Gillim is coming off his best race result of the year – a fifth in race two at Ridge. Kelly, meanwhile, got off to a great start to his season with four successive fourth-place finishes before things went off the rails at Road America and have continued through the Ridge round. Kelly is 95 points behind Herrin and five ahead of Gillim’s teammate J.D. Beach, who is eighth in the Superbike standings while leading the Superbike Cup title chase for those racing Stock 1000-spec bikes in the Superbike class.
BPR Racing’s Bryce Kornbau is ninth, one point ahead of FLO4LAW/SBU Racing’s Benjamin Smith, who is coming off a horrendous weekend in Washington with two mechanical DNFs in the two races.
