Superbike Champion Josh Hayes shakes down his new Yamaha R1 in preparation for the inaugural MotoAmerica season. Photography By Brian J. Nelson
Six of the top teams in the MotoAmerica AMA/FIM North American Road Racing Series completed a two-day test at Thunderhill Raceway Park in Willows, California, yesterday as they continue to prepare for the MotoAmerica series opener at Circuit of the Americas in Austin, Texas, April 10-12.
The riders and teams testing at Thunderhill included four-time AMA Superbike Champion Josh Hayes and his Monster Energy Graves Yamaha teammate Cameron Beaubier; Yoshimura Suzuki teammates Roger Hayden and Jake Lewis; Red Bull Roadrace Factory’s Jake Gagne; Meen Motorsports teammates Josh Herrin and Joe Roberts; Latus Motors’ Bobby Fong; and the Graves Yamaha’s Supersport duo of JD Beach and Garrett Gerloff.
No lap times were given, but all the teams were pleased with two productive days of testing with their new equipment.
Monster Graves Yamaha’s Cameron Beaubier was very pleased with his new Yamaha R1.
“I absolutely love the bike,” Beaubier said. “I feel like I have more of a GP style with sweeping lines and being a smaller guy—and it fits me perfect. To me it’s like riding a really advanced 600. I loved the R6 and I won the championship in 2013 on it and I got along really well with that bike and I see a lot of that bike in this.
“I think it’s going to be a really fun season. It’s cool to be able to put my input into developing this bike and it’s something I’ve never done before. This is the perfect track for the bike. Some fast-speed stuff, some slow-speed stuff, a decent front straight. It’s a good testing track.”
Yoshimura Suzuki’s Roger Hayden wished he was quicker, but was happy with his consistent lap times, something he’s been trying to work on.
“Today went pretty good, actually,” Roger Hayden said. “I wanted to be a little bit quicker, but I’m kinda being a little bit too hard on myself because I had a really good lap time. I just wanted to take it one notch further and I just couldn’t do it. I did a 10-lap stint, a couple of them, and in one of them every lap was within a 10th [of a second] so I was really happy with that. I was really happy with that consistency and the team was happy with that too. I’m happy because that is sometimes what I struggle with—some laps fast, some slow—and that’s really what I worked on.”
The youngest of the Hayden brothers looks forward to the season start at he Circuit of the Americas.
“I’m really looking forward to racing at COTA,” Hayden said. “To be there with the MotoGP people is great. It’s really awesome for my family too because Nicky [his brother] races there and I race there. So they get to come and watch both of us. Kind of how it was back in the day. I really like that aspect. My older sister is coming, my younger sister will be there. I’m excited about that. I’m really looking forward to getting the season started. I feel like I’m riding pretty good and I’m looking forward to it.
“I think it’s going to be cool to be a part of MotoAmerica and seeing it grow, hopefully in the right direction, and getting bigger and bigger and racing alongside the GP guys. I think that’s super good for us and I’m really excited for and hopefully we show what we can do in front of the GP crowd. I’m really excited about it.”
Meen Motorsports Josh Herrin is looking to bouncing back from a tough season in Moto2 in his return back to U.S. racing Supersport in the newly branded national series—MotoAmerica.
“I’m hoping for a good year,” Herrin said. “It’s a familiar bike for me so I’m excited to be back on the R6. I’m just trying some things before the series gets going and trying some different parts. I think the main thing about it is the Moto2 bike was something completely different than I’ve ever ridden. It was really fun to ride, but I never really got my style to work with it. We never got the setup right. I can go jump on the R6 and go race it without even changing anything and I’ll do all right.
“Obviously, I want to fine-tune it, but I’m happy to be back on it for sure. I also have familiar tracks now. That’s also the big thing. One of the difficult things [about Moto2] was learning new tracks; not only learning new tracks, but how wide they are… the curbs, everything. I crashed at my last test at Buttonwillow because I used the curb and wasn’t really thinking about it and it threw me off pretty quick. In Europe the paint is stickier than the asphalt.”
