PHOTO COURTESY OF TEAM YAMAHA MGM
American Cameron Beaubier ended his first outing in the IDM German Superbike Championship with mixed results—a crash in race one and a fourth-place finish in race two. Beaubier was filling in for one of the injured riders on the Team Yamaha MGM squad at Schleizer Dreieck, and although he was hoping for better results, the MotoAmerica Superbike rider was satisfied with his first effort.
“Obviously I would like to be on the podium, but I’m glad I rode a smart race,” Beaubier said. “I just really need to thank Yamaha MGM for giving me this opportunity. It’s been a really fun weekend and I learned a lot, a new track, new tires, the Yamaha MGM version of the R1 and I just had a ton of fun this weekend.”
As the weekend progressed Beaubier got more comfortable.
“In the first race felt really good at the beginning, like the best I felt all weekend,” Beaubier said. “I had a really good pace and I felt like I can go with [Markus] Reiterberger and [Xavi] Fores for a little bit. I tucked the front in turn five, so that was the end of my race. It was kind of a bummer, because I was doing my best times and had my best race going so far here.
“In race two I went out and I wanted to do a similar pace at the beginning, but I didn’t get the best start and I kind of struggled the first laps with my confidence after the crash. I saw Fores and Reiterberger were gone, but I could still see [Lorenzo] Lanzi and I just tried to put some solid laps together and don’t go too crazy and just get a good pace to the finish.”
Team Manager Michael Galinski was happy with Beaubier’s result.
“I need to admit that Cameron did a really good job as he was never in Schleiz before,” Galinski said. “In the first race he was directly at the front group. He just hit a curb and had a small slide. It was unfortunate, but a really solid performance.
“In the second race the rear tire decreased a bit for Cameron and then there was the really tragic crash of Kev [Coughlin]. All the team wishes him to get well soon. In general we were really satisfied with both of them, we had immediately a really good relationship and were able to work perfectly together, but unfortunately with a poor end.”
Beaubier’s teammate for the weekend Kev Coghlan had a really nasty crash in the first corner on lap two of the second race and was hospitalized with suspected fractured three thoracic vertebrae.
The next stop for Beaubier is Indianapolis for the upcoming penultimate round of the MotoAmerica AMA/FIM North American Road Racing Championship where he will once again face off against teammate Josh Hayes in their fight for the Superbike title. The pair are tied on points with four races left of 2015.
