Photography by Andrea Wilson
Jason DiSalvo, Jake Gagne and Cameron Beaubier all spent time in the lead in Saturday’s AMA GoPro Daytona SportBike race, but in the end Beaubier had too much of everything. After taking the lead he strung together relentlessly fast laps and eventually broke away from Gagne and DiSalvo to earn his third victory of the season, extending his series lead.
DiSalvo led the first lap on the Latus Motors Racing Triumph. He has a decade of experience on this track and it showed. Unfortunately for Triumph fans his bike was not able to hold the line as well as the Yamahas chasing him and on the second lap Gagne put his RoadRace Factory Yamaha into the lead. That held for a couple of laps before Beaubier, on the Yamaha Extended Service/Monster Energy/ Graves Yamaha R6, took over the lead from Gagne with a strong outbraking move going into turn five.
From there the leading trio ran nose to tail for much of the middle section of the race, but with about nine laps to go Beaubier made his breakaway and slowly, but surely he extended his lead. By the checkered flag he was 5.185 seconds ahead of second-place Gagne. DiSalvo ran his best race of the season, earning his first podium in third.
There was an epic battle for fourth that came down to the wire. In the end late-braking by Dane Westby earned him the spot in a close one over JD Beach and Garrett Gerloff. It was Westby’s best result of the year. James Rispoli had been with that group earlier, but fell off in the closing laps to finish a lonely seventh.
Bobby Fong edged Joey Pascarella for eighth. Benny Solis rounded out the top ten.
“We had a really good setup today,” said Beaubier, who swept last year’s DSB races at Barber. “We worked a lot yesterday on setup. My bike was super comfortable all race. I went with the soft (tire compound) and tried to conserve it a little bit at the beginning. With about ten laps to go I started pushing pretty hard and tried to make a little gap to make it easier on myself in the last couple of laps because I know both these guys are really good riders in the last couple of laps.”
Daytona SportBike Results from Barber Motorsports Park – June 22, 2013
1 6 Cameron Beaubier Roseville, CA Yamaha YZF-R6 21 Laps
2 32 Jake Gagne San Diego, CA Yamaha YZF-R6 +05.185
3 40 Jason DiSalvo Batavia, NY Triumph Daytona 675 +09.613
4 5 Dane Westby Tulsa, OK Honda CBR600RR +12.045
5 95 JD Beach Philpot, KY Yamaha YZF-R6 +12.259
6 8 Garrett Gerloff Spring, TX Yamaha YZF-R6 +12.262
7 43 James Rispoli Londonderry, NH Suzuki GSX-R600 +23.062
8 50 Bobby Fong Stockton, CA Triumph Daytona 675 +31.656
9 52 Joey Pascarella Antelope, CA Triumph Daytona 675 +31.718
10 3 Benny Solis North Hollywood, CA Honda CBR600RR +32.223
