2017 COTA MotoAmerica Race Two Results
Rennie Scaysbrook | April 23, 2017
Elias makes it two for two at COTA 2017
Toni Elias and the Yoshimura Suzuki Factory Racing team cleaned up yet again in the second race of the 2017 MotoAmerica Superbike season at Circuit of The Americas today.
The formidable combination of Elias and Yoshimura Suzuki have never been beaten at COTA, and the win marks the first double victory for the new 2017 Suzuki GSX-R1000 superbike in MotoAmerica competition.
Elias held off a determined late race charge from Cameron Beaubier (Monster Energy/Yamalube/Yamaha Factory Racing), the reigning MotoAmerica Superbike champion havng a much better race than his first of the weekend on Saturday when he lost the front end in an early race crash before finishing in eighth.
Elias’ teammate Roger Hayden looked as though he might steal a surprise victory, trailing Elias for much of the race in second place before Beaubier barged past and took after the Spaniard. The youngest of the three Hayden brothers had to settle for this overall, cementing his second place behind Elias in the championship after round one.
Fourth place was a good turn around in fortunes for former four-time MotoAmerica Superbike Champion Josh Hayes. Hayes had been a victim of Kyle Wyman’s race one crash on Saturday but this time remained trouble free to finish 11.2 seconds behind winner Elias.
Fifth place and first Superstock 1000 rider was again the Quicksilver Latus Motors Kawasaki-mounted Bobby Fong. Fong, like Elias, now hasn’t lost a race in his class since the beginning of last year at COTA, the place clearly a happy hunting ground for the ZX-10R rider.