Photography by Brian J. Nelson
MONTEREY, CA, SEPT. 29 – Y.E.S Monster Graves Yamaha’s Cameron Beaubier ended his near-perfect season in the same manger in which he started it six months ago – with a victory. This time, however, it was of the come-from-behind variety, the talented youngster bouncing back from an injured knee and ankle suffered in a practice crash yesterday to snatch victory away from near-race long leader Jake Lewis at the very end.
Beaubier completed the first lap in fifth place and he had work to do to get to the front. He also had time to do it and he went about the task with the patience of a much more experienced racer. On the fifth lap, Beaubier was back to sixth place, having been passed by the Latus Motors Racing Triumph of Jason DiSalvo, but he didn’t panic. Instead he waited, repassing DiSalvo on the seventh lap, the doing likewise to D&D Cycles Triumph’s Bobby Fong a lap later to move into fourth place. From there he trailed his teammate Garrett Gerloff for two more laps before moving into third. At that point he trailed race leader Lewis by 1.5 seconds.
Then he he started to slowly whittle away at the lead and on the 14th of 20 laps he made his move on Roadrace Factory’s JD Beach into the Corkscrew to take over second place. On the 15th lap he was .396 of a second behind Lewis and the Mees Motorsports Yamaha and he would start to hound the Kentuckian for the rest of the way until taking the lead on the 18th lap in turn two. Lewis didn’t throw in the towel, however, and the lanky youngster hounded the series champion over the final two laps, coming up just .642 behind at the finish line. It was Lewis’ best performance of his rookie season of Daytona SportBike racing.
Beach held on to finish third – barely. Gerloff put in a late-race charge to challenge Beach, coming up just .065 of a second behind him. Then came a rather lonely DiSalvo, some 16 seconds off the pace, but almost two seconds ahead of Riders Discount Racing Triumph’s Jake Zemke, the veteran just half a second ahead of the GEICO Honda of Dane Westby with Roadrace Factory’s Tomas Puerta, in his Daytona SportBike debut, a shadow eighth.
Fong, Team Amantini’s Fernando Amantini and Roadrace Factory’s Jake Gagne rounded out the top 11. Gagne was coming off a broken collarbone suffered at the New Jersey round with the break requiring surgery.
Beaubier’s win was his 12th on the season (he only lost one of the two races at Road America to Gagne where he finished second) and he finished the year with a massive 403 points to Gagne’s 254. Gerloff ended the season ranked third in the championship with 243 points, 26 clear of JD Beach. Lewis earned rookie of the year honors by finishing fifth in the series standings.
Daytona SportBike Results
Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca
September 29, 2013
1. Cameron Beaubier (Yamaha)
2. Jake Lewis (Yamaha)
3. JD Beach (Yamaha)
4. Garrett Gerloff (Yamaha)
5. Jason DiSalvo (Triumph)
6. Jake Zemke (Triumph)
7. Dane Westby (Honda)
8. Tomas Puerta (Yamaha)
9. Bobby Fong (Triumph)
10. Fernado Amantini (Yamaha)
