SHELTON, Wash. – Monster Energy Attack Performance Yamaha’s Cameron Beaubier continued his HONOS Superbike season domination Friday in the opening qualifying session at the Ridge Motorsports Park.
The championship leader lapped at 1:40.358 to best the rest by more than a second.
Beaubier’s best came on the 14th lap and it was 1.029 seconds quicker than Westby Racing’s Mathew Scholtz, the South African’s fastest lap a 1:41.387. Beaubier’s best was a lap record in MotoAmerica’s debut race at the track in the Pacific Northwest.
Third fastest heading into Saturday’s Superpole session was Beaubier’s teammate Jake Gagne. Gagne’s best lap was a 1:42.010 – 1.652 seconds slower than Beaubier.
M4 ECSTAR Suzuki’s Toni Elias continues to search for his mojo on his GSX-R1000 and he improved to the fourth fastest time, one spot higher than his teammate Bobby Fong.
Italian Lorenzo Zanetti rode his Celtic HSBK Racing Ducati Panigale V4 R to the sixth best time, half a second behind Fong and .326 of a second ahead of Scheibe Racing BMW’s Josh Herrin. FLY Racing ADR Motorsports’ David Anthony, Rock & Son’s Jason Uribe and Anthony’s teammate Bradley Ward completed the top 10 on the opening day.
The Supersport war between HONOS Kawasaki’s championship points leader Richie Escalante and M4 ECSTAR Suzuki’s Sean Dylan Kelly continued on opening day at the Ridge, the two fighting for the top spot in Q1 with Kelly and his 1:44.204 getting the nod over Escalante’s 1:44.822. Altus Motorsports’ Kevin Olmedo was third with a best of 1:45.375.
Norton Motorsports/Ninja400R/Dr. Farr/Wonder CBD Rocco Landers bested Celtic HSBK Racing’s Samuel Lochoff by a tick over half a second to lead the way in the Liqui Moly Junior Cup class. BARTCON Racing’s Dominic Doyle was third fastest.
Altus Motorsports’ Cameron Petersen led the way in the Stock 1000 class with his 1:43.362. Ride HVMC Racing’s Corey Alexander was second fastest with Alex Dumas bouncing back from a crash on the M4 ECSTAR Suzuki to finish the day third fastest.
The final session of the day was the Twins Cup and Landers continued to lead the way on his Sportbike TrackGear.com Suzuki with a lap time that was 1.7 seconds faster than Robem Engineering’s Jackson Blackmon. Syndicate Racing/Apex Assassins’ Jason Madama ended up third with championship leader Kaleb De Keyrel fourth.