Photography by Brian J. Nelson
BRASELTON, GA (April 19, 2015) – Cameron Beaubier freely admitted he wasn’t that great of a rain rider last year. That all has changed. In the rain at Road Atlanta, the young Monster Energy/Graves Yamaha Superbike rider pulled away from his teammate Josh Hayes to score a convincing victory, his second of the season. The margin of victory when the race was stopped by a red flag was 4.699-seconds. Yoshimura Suzuki’s rookie Superbike racer Jake Lewis was third, 13.6-second behind Beaubier, earning his first Superbike podium.
Beaubier takes over the series lead after the race win with race two coming up later this afternoon.
“I was just trying to keep my head down,” Beaubier said. “I had a good rhythm going from the get go. I struggled a little bit off the line on the second start, but I got by them and I learned a lot following Josh around. I’m looking forward to the second race. It doesn’t look like it’s going to let up at all.”
The first start was aborted with a red flag after two riders, Scott Harwell and Bill Ethridge, crashed in turn five. The race was reduced to from 22 to 14 laps. Hayden nailed the holeshot with Hayes in second and Beaubier third. Hayes took over at the end of the back straight. Beaubier ran wide and lost a position to Day.
Huntley Nash pitted on the first lap with some issue on his machine.
Hayden went back to the lead to start lap three, while Beaubier got around Day to run third behind Hayes.
On lap four Beaubier got by Hayes and was immediately challenging Hayden. Day, Lewis and Gagne battled for fourth. At turn 10 Beaubier moved to the inside to pass for the lead and Hayden was pushed a bit off the line and went down. He ran to the bike to try to see if he could continue, but the damage to the Yoshimura Suzuki was too great.
Mid-stages and it was Beaubier leading his teammate Hayes and then a gap back to a three-way battle for the final podium spot with Lewis running ahead of Day and Gagne.
Gagne was the next to fall out of the race while running fourth.
In the end another crash by Devon McDonough brought out the red flag, ending the race a couple of laps early.
Josh Day took victory in Superstock 1000 on the Yamalube/Westby Racing Yamaha. He was fourth overall on the track.
Superbike Race One Results:
1. Cameron Beaubier (Yamaha)
2. Josh Hayes (Yamaha)
3. Jake Lewis (Suzuki)
4. Bernat Martinez (Yamaha)
5. Chris Ulrich (Suzuki)
6. Elena Myers (Suzuki)
Superstock 1000 Race One Results:
1. Joshua Day (Yamaha)
2. Tyler O’Hara (Yamaha)
3. Taylor Knapp (Yamaha)
4. Mark Heckles (Yamaha)
5. Devon McDonough (Aprilia)
6. Brad Burns (Suzuki)
7. Shane Narbonne (Yamaha)
8. Dustin Dominguez (Aprilia)
9. Barrett Long (Ducati)
10. Marcel Irnie (Yamaha)
