Cycle News Staff | June 12, 2016
Two of MotoAmerica’s defending champions had a very good day at Barber Motorsports Park on Saturday. MotoAmerica Superbike Champion Cameron Beaubier earned his fourth pole position of the 2016 season and the ninth of his Superbike career and Supersport Champion JD Beach looked a lot like his old aggressive self as he won the first of two Supersport races scheduled for this weekend’s Honda Superbike Showdown of Alabama.
Beaubier’s pole position of 1:24.601 came on a blazingly hot afternoon in Alabama and it was well under his pole time of 1:25.599 from last year. Beaubier, who has won six of six of the last seven rounds and heads the championship point standings, had been fastest in every session prior to Superpole – despite crashing out of Superbike Practice 3 today when he suffered a crash in turn two.
The surprise of Superpole was Taylor Knapp, the Michigander filling in for the injured Josh Day on the Yamalube/Westby Racing team and taking full advantage of the situation to earn the first front row of his career. With his lap of 1:24.937, Knapp also became the first rider on a Superstock 1000-spec motorcycle to qualify second in a Superbike race. Knapp was following the right guy when he did his fast lap – Beaubier.
Third fastest and the last rider to crack into the 1:24s was Yoshimura Suzuki’s Toni Elias, the Spaniard bouncing back from a big highside crash on Friday to put the GSX-R1000 on the front row for tomorrow’s races.
Elias’ Yoshimura Suzuki teammate Roger Hayden will lead row two for the races, the Kentuckian lapping at 1:25.178 to end up fourth fastest. Aprilia HSBK Racing’s Claudio Corti, who came through from Superpole 1, will be sandwiched between Hayden and Monster Energy/Graves Yamaha’s Josh Hayes on the second row with Hayes continuing to struggle at Barber Motorsports Park. Still, Hayes is just .779 of a second off his teammate’s best and few would discount him from contending in tomorrow’s races.
The third row will consist of TOBC Racing’s Danny Eslick, Wheels In Motion/Meen Motorsports Josh Herrin and Millennium Technologies/KWR’s Kyle Wyman. Cycle World Suzuki’s Hayden Gillim, M4 Suzuki’s Jake Lewis and Quicksilver/Latus Motors Racing’s Bobby Fong will make up row four.
You could see right away at the start of the Supersport race that JD Beach meant business, the Y.E.S. Graves Yamaha rider sitting behind Meen Motorsports’ Joe Roberts for a few laps before knifing his way past. From there he was never headed, though he was hounded throughout by his teammate Garrett Gerloff, the championship leader finishing 1.6 seconds behind in the race that was stopped after 21 laps with lightning striking close to the racetrack.
The win was Beach’s second of the season and it allowed him to claw back five points from Gerloff in the battle for the championship. He trails by 38 points, 210-172, with five races left in the series. Debise is third and 55 points behind Gerloff.
Third place on Saturday when to Frenchman Valentin Debise, the M4 SportbikeTrackGear.com Suzuki rider some 12 seconds behind and just .187 of a second ahead of fourth-place finisher Roberts. Team H35 Honda’s Benny Solis rounded out the top five finishers.
Bryce Prince finished sixth in the Supersport race and first in the Superstock 600 class, the Californian well clear of Kyle Wyman Racing’s Travis Wyman with JC Camacho third on the Atlus Motorsports Yamaha.
Prince, with his fifth win of the season, is running away with the Superstock 600 Championship and he now leads Wyman by 78 points, 192-114. HB Racing/Meen Motorsports’ Dakota Mamola, 11th overall and fifth in class today, is one point behind Wyman in their battle for second in the title chase.
The KTM RC Cup races are usually decided by fractions of a second with up to four or five riders battling to the finish. Not so on Saturday as AXcess Racing’s Brandon Paasch was able to do what no one else has been able to do so far this season – he left the pack in his wake to win by 4.388 seconds.
The battle for second went the distance with Double B Racing’s Jody Barry narrowly beating Yates Racing’s Ashton Yates. Paasch’s rival in the championship, Anthony Mazziotto III, ended up fifth and over 12 seconds behind Paasch, who now leads the title chase by 19 points, 189-170.
RESULTS
SUPERBIKE QUALIFYING: 1. Cameron Beaubier (Yamaha) 1:24.601; 2. Taylor Knapp (Yamaha) 1:24.937; 3. Toni Elias (Suzuki) 1:24.969; 4. Roger Hayden (Suzuki) 1:25.178; 6. Claudio Corti (Aprilia) 1:25.269; 7. Josh Hayes (Yamaha) 1:25.380; 8. Josh Herrin (Yamaha) 1:25.993; 9. Kyle Wyman (Yamaha) 1:26.457; 10. Hayden Gillim (Suzuki) 1:26.463.
SUPERSPORT RACE 1: 1. JD Beach (Yamaha); 2. Garrett Gerloff (Yamaha); 3. Valentin Debise (Suzuki); 4. Joe Roberts (Yamaha); 5. Benny Solis Jr. (Honda); 6. Bryce Prince (Yamaha); 7. Travis Wyman (Yamaha); 8. JC Camacho (Yamaha); 9. Cameron Petersen (Suzuki); 10. Nick McFadden (Yamaha).
KTM RC CUP RACE 1: 1. Brandon Paasch; 2. Jody Barry; 3. Ashton Yates; 4. Anthony Mazziotto III; 5. Josh Serne; 6. Draik Beauchamp; 7. Jackson Blackmon; 8. Alejandro Gutierrez; 9. Nolan Lampkin; 10. Ezra Beaubier.