Press Release | June 13, 2021
Sunday
Superbike
Cameron who? Okay, it’s a bit early to say that Jake Gagne is reminding us an awful lot of Cameron Beaubier, but let’s go ahead and say it: Jake Gagne is reminding us an awful lot of Cameron Beaubier.
Fresh N’ Lean Attack Performance Yamaha’s Gagne won his fifth consecutive HONOS Superbike race today at Road America, the Californian sweeping the two races in Wisconsin after doing the same a few weeks ago at VIRginia International Raceway. To say he is on a roll would be a gross understatement.
Like he did yesterday, and in the three races prior to that, Gagne led from pole position into turn one, fought off the early attack from M4 ECSTAR Suzuki of Cameron Petersen and never lost the lead. Gagne’s second lap was as hot as the Wisconsin sun, a 2:10.998, while Petersen clicked off a 2:12.114.
Game over.
Petersen had a stellar weekend, finishing third in race one and second in race two.
Westby Racing’s Mathew Scholtz finished third, the South African barely holding off Bobby Fong after the M4 ECSTAR Suzuki rider had finally rid himself of Gagne’s teammate Josh Herrin. Scholtz crossed the finish line just .004 of a second ahead of Fong.
Fong ended up a fighting fourth, some three seconds ahead of Herrin, who in turn managed to beat Scheibe Racing BMW’s Hector Barbera, the Spaniard continuing to impress in his first season of racing in the MotoAmerica Series.
FLY Racing ADR Motorsports’ David Anthony had a strong ride to seventh, holding off the advances of Altus Motorsports’ Jake Lewis with the Kentuckian the top Superbike Cup finisher on his Stock 1000-spec GSX-R1000. Lewis’ fellow Superbike Cup rivals rounded out the top 10 – Travis Wyman Racing’s Travis Wyman and HONOS HVMC Racing’s Corey Alexander.
Notables who failed to finish were Warhorse HSBK Racing Ducati New York’s Loris Baz and Panera Bread Ducati’s Kyle Wyman. Baz’s Panigale V4 R blew up early in the race while the Frenchman was battling with Petersen for second and Wyman crashed his Panigale late in the race.
2021 Road America MotoAmerica—Superbike Race Two
1 |
Jake Gagne |
(Yam) |
2 |
Cameron Petersen |
(Suz) |
3 |
Mathew Scholtz |
(Yam) |
4 |
Bobby Fong |
(Suz) |
5 |
Josh Herrin |
(Yam) |
Supersport
After suffering a somewhat bizarre crash in Supersport race one at Road America on Saturday, HONOS HVMC Racing’s Richie Escalante returned to form in Sunday’s race two and showed why he has the number one on his Kawasaki. With M4 ECSTAR Suzuki’s Sean Dylan Kelly starting from the pole, Escalante overtook Kelly on the opening lap, stretched his lead throughout the 11-lap race, and took the checkers by nearly 10 seconds over second-place finisher and class rival Kelly, who finished second. Third place in race two went to race one winner Stefano Mesa aboard his MESA37Racing Kawasaki.
Stock 1000
There was one Stock 1000 race on the schedule at Road America, and polesitter Geoff May looked very strong in the early going aboard his Geoff May Racing VisionWheel.com Honda. It’s early days for May with the all-new-for-2021 motorcycle, and as the race went on, the lack of seat time and also time to manipulate the electronics on the bike conspired against him. Altus Motorsports Suzuki rider Jake Lewis overtook May and went on to win his second race of the season. While May held on to finish second, HONOS HVMC Racing’s Corey Alexander raced his Kawasaki to third place.
Junior Cup
SportbikeTrackGear.com Junior Cup race two featured one of the best battles of the day. In the class where drafting is such a key strategy, the three frontrunners were locked in a heated battle. Scott Powersports KTM rider Tyler Scott was the first of the triumvirate to take his turn in the lead, while Veloce Racing’s Max Toth, and Rodio Racing’s Gus Rodio kept themselves in the mix. The result at the stripe was a photo finish with Rodio nipping Scott by .024 of a second, and Scott beating Toth by .022 of a second. For Rodio, it was his first career MotoAmerica victory and highlighted his comeback from the broken femur that he suffered in a crash at Ridge Motorsports Park in 2020.
King of The Baggers
Round two of the 2021 Mission King Of The Baggers Championship took place on Sunday at Road America, and in the home state of Harley-Davidson, the Motor Company swept the podium. Harley-Davidson factory rider Kyle Wyman started from the pole and led every lap of the race all the way to the checkered flag. Indian-mounted O’Hara was in hot pursuit of Wyman for most of the race until he was sidelined with a mechanical issue, which handed second place to Wyman’s brother Travis, who was just announced earlier this week as Kyle’s teammate on the factory team. Third place went to Vance & Hines Harley-Davidson rider Gillim.
Saturday
Superbike
Fresh N’ Lean Attack Performance Yamaha’s Jake Gagne continued his domination of the 2021 MotoAmerica HONOS Superbike class, the Californian winning a fourth straight race while also taking over the lead in the championship on a hot and sunny day at Road America.
In a carbon copy of his three other victories, Gagne led from pole position and was never headed. He was the only rider to lap in the 2:11s and pulled away to what was ultimately a 5.987-second victory.
When we brought this Yamaha off the truck on Friday it felt really, really good,” Gagne said. “This track is just unique. I knew these guys were going to go. When you get to a race here at this track, we’ve got these long straightaways and people can make up time. It’s one thing doing it in practice, but these guys will step it up in the race. My first couple laps were really, really solid. Didn’t want to make any mistakes. Just tried to be smooth, be easy on these tires. Just kind of barely creeped away. It wasn’t much. It wasn’t like VIR. These guys were on my toes. I could see a couple of those spots you can see the big TV and you see those blue bikes and the red bike battling around. Hats off to the crew. They keep working, working, working no matter how fast we are. Even if we’ve got a little gap, they keep working and we keep going faster and that’s the plan. I think we learned a lot even today. I think we can try to brush some things up tomorrow because these boys are going to be coming.”
The battle for second was a good one with Warhorse HSBK Racing Ducati New York’s Loris Baz storming through in the last few laps to go from fourth to second, passing both M4 ECSTAR Suzukis to finish behind Gagne after making dramatic changes to his Ducati Panigale V4 R prior to the race.
“We changed the bike a lot,” Baz said. “Every session I would go out with a completely different bike. In race one, we changed the swingarm more than once just 20 minutes before the race because we got a lot of data. We tried a lot of things. That bike never rode actually with the Dunlop tire. We have to find the setup and work with the style. I was struggling all weekend. Finally, I trust my guys. The early laps it was really hard because when you go with a new bike and everyone is pushing hard, I was just slow. Then I took pace. I saw Cam (Petersen) was really fast coming on Bobby (Fong) and I just hope that he overtake him really soon so I can come back, and (this) is exactly what happened. Going into the last lap, I managed to overtake Bobby before the finish line. So, I said, ‘okay.’ I just tried to stay with Cam, but it was hard because also Bobby was just behind. In the last corner, I just wanted to open the line to have a good drive, but I had to close the door for Bobby. It was tough. But we’re getting there step by step. It’s really hard getting to try so many things in such a small amount of time, but that’s our challenge. Congrats to Cam. Hats off to Jake. We have to work really hard to catch him. Massive thanks to all the team. That one goes to Jason (Dupasquier, who passed away from injuries suffered in a qualifying crash for the Italian Moto3 Grand Prix).”
Baz passed both Bobby Fong and Cameron Petersen on the run to the flag with just .073 of a second covering the three-rider battle for second. Petersen held on for third for his first MotoAmerica Superbike podium with his teammate Fong a shadow fourth.
“I’m super happy,” Petersen said. “Obviously, I’ve been working for this for a long time. I’ve had a few opportunities at it, and it never seems to go my way. So, to finally get one it feels so, so good. I kind of keep going on about it, but this one’s for my family. They sacrificed everything. So, this one goes out to my dad, my mom, my sister, my fiancé. They’ve sacrificed pretty much everything for me to get to this point, so this one’s for them.”
Some eight seconds behind the battle for second, the battle for fifth was settled at the line with Gagne’s teammate Josh Herrin barely besting Westby Racing’s Mathew Scholtz for the spot.
Another some 11 seconds behind came a tussle for seventh that went to Panera Bread Ducati’s Kyle Wyman over Scheibe Racing BMW’s Hector Barbera, the Spaniard ending up eighth in his Road America debut.
FLY Racing ADR Motorsports’ David Anthony and Geoff May Racing/VisionWheel.com’s Geoff May, the Georgian taking the Superbike Cup as the top-finishing Stock 1000-spec mounted racer.
With his third win in four races, Gagne leads the championship by nine points over Scholtz, 100-91. Herrin is third with 72 points, 10 points clear of Petersen’s 62. Fong is fifth with 59 points.
Superbike Race 1
- Jake Gagne (Yamaha)
- Loris Baz (Ducati)
- Cameron Petersen (Suzuki)
- Bobby Fong (Suzuki)
- Josh Herrin (Yamaha)
- Mathew Scholtz (Yamaha)
- Kyle Wyman (Ducati)
- Hector Barbera (BMW)
- David Anthony (Suzuki)
- Geoff May (Honda)
Supersport: Mesa Gets His First!
Saturday’s Supersport race one at Road America was looking like it would be another photo finish between polesitter Kelly and defending class champion Escalante. The pair battled hard for the win and exchanged the lead more than 30 times during the 11-lap race. On the final lap, both riders almost simultaneously lowsided and slid off the track unhurt. While they scrambled to remount, finish the race, and salvage points, MESA37 Racing Kawasaki rider Mesa took the checkers for his first career MotoAmerica Supersport victory and second win aboard a 600-class motorcycle at Road America.
Finishing second was M4 ECSTAR Suzuki’s Sam Lochoff, the Supersport rookie notching his first podium result in the class. North East Cycle Outlet Racing Yamaha’s Benjamin Smith rounded out the podium in third.
“It was a great race,” Mesa said. “The whole MESA37 Racing team has been working so hard these past couple of years, trying to get the big ball rolling, trying to compete with the factory teams. We’ve been doing a good job. To be honest, it was a great race. It’s not how I wanted to win it, but I’ll take it, definitely. It was really just a tough race. We’ve been struggling a little bit finding that sweet spot on the Kawasaki. Going into the race, we did a gearing change and a few (other) changes, so it was kind of a blind eye, but I think it worked. We’re definitely going to have to work a little bit harder to try and catch the two other guys. The two other guys definitely took off from us. I think we’re happy, but we definitely want to work harder, and we want to beat them. We want to beat them the right way. So, we’ll keep working at it.”
SportbikeTrackGear.com Junior Cup: Scott Comes Out On Top
Scott Powersports KTM rider Tyler Scott took off from the start line of Saturday’s SportbikeTrackGear.com Junior Cup race like he was shot from a cannon. Polesitter Benjamin Gloddy had his work cut out for him, but he rode his Landers Racing Kawasaki hard and managed to catch back up to Scott. The pair swapped the lead several times during the seven-lap race, but in the end, it was Scott who prevailed with the victory. Meanwhile, Kermoto/Madden Painting Kawasaki’s Cody Wyman, who had started from the middle of the third row in eighth, made good use of the draft, and worked himself up to the front of the pack. On the final run to the checkers, Wyman barely nipped Gloddy at the line to take second place by .009 of a second. Gloddy settled for third and the final spot on the podium.
When asked if he thought taking the early lead in the race would enable him to get away and take an easy win, Scott said, “I was hoping that. I thought they were way closer than they actually were going to the line. I thought I was going to get passed at the line. I tried to pace myself throughout the race and just tried to stay up front for an opportunity to draft at the line. Then I saw the opportunity to lead the race, so I led the race the final lap and got the win.”
Twins Cup: De Keyrel By A Mile
Twins Cup was the final race of the day on Saturday at Road America, and Robem Engineering Aprilia rider Kaleb De Keyrel made a strong statement when he started from the pole, got the holeshot, and won the eight-lap race by just under eight seconds. While De Keyrel cleared off at the front, the battle was on for the other two spots on the podium. Championship leader Teagg Hobbs crashed out of a possible podium finish, which handed the points lead to De Keyrel. Second place ultimately went to Jackson Blackmon Racing Yamaha’s Jackson Blackmon over third-place finisher Chris Parrish aboard his GCP Suzuki.
The win seemed easy for De Keyrel, but he didn’t think so.
“I don’t know if it was easy,” he said. “I just knew these guys were fast, and I knew that they were coming. My game plan was to try and get the best start I can and break the draft. Obviously, drafting is a huge part of racing here at Road America. I knew that our bike was a little bit slower on the straight. It doesn’t quite have the drive to get onto the straightaway, so I knew I had to try and break away and get out. Just kind of put my head down and went as fast as I could. I’ve got to thank my suspension guy. He’s been getting me more and more comfortable every time we hit the track. Obviously, we didn’t get a whole lot of testing at the beginning of the season, so just time on the bike is huge for us to get me more comfortable as a rider on the bike. We’re sitting in a pretty good spot right now. I’m feeling really confident, really comfortable on this Aprilia RS 660. It was just handling like a dream. I was just kind of putting my head down and going as fast as I could.”
Mini Cup: Matsudaira And Shedden Dominate
In round one of the Mini Cup by Motul, MotoAmerica’s youngest racers, aboard Ohvale GP-0 mini-bikes, put on quite a show for the huge crowd in attendance at Road America’s kart track.
In the 110 class, American Racing Team’s Kensei Matsudaira was the race one winner in a dominant performance where he took the checkers by more than 15 seconds. Second place went to Warhorse HSBK Racing Ducati New York’s Nathan Gouker, while Anthony Lupo Jr. Racing’s Anthony Lupo Jr. finished third.
The results from 110 class race two were identical with Matsudaira getting another win, Gouker finishing second again, and Lupo Jr. again rounding out the podium. Matsudaira’s gap in race two was a little over 11 seconds.
Matsudaira was absolutely the rider of the meet because he was also the winner in both race one and race two of the 160 class. Atlas Speed Factory’s Jesse James Shedden finished second in both 160 races, and Matsudaira’s teammate Joshua Raymond rounded out the podium in both 160 races.
In 190 class race one, Shedden won by nearly four seconds over Fernandez Racing’s Jayden Fernandez, with Travis Wyman Racing’s Chris Clark finishing third. Race two of the 190 class saw Shedden win again, this time by just under two seconds over Raymond. Clark completed the podium again in third.
Friday
Superbike
Fresh N’ Lean Attack Performance Yamaha’s Jake Gagne has been on pole position for the first two rounds of the 2021 MotoAmerica HONOS Superbike season. Based on his performance today in Q1, it would be hard to bet against him doing that again this weekend in round three at Road America.
Gagne best lap, a 2:11.426, came on his eighth go-around of the session on the four-mile Road America on a scorching hot day in Elkhart Lake. That 2:11.426 was .359 of a second quicker than M4 ECSTAR Suzuki’s Cameron Petersen, the non-defending MotoAmerica Stock 1000 Champion impressing on the team’s Suzuki GSX-R1000 Superbike.
“We made a big gearing change and went taller than we had last year because we figured we’d pick up some more pace,” Gagne said. “I don’t think any of us have ever seen this track this hot so it’s a little greasier than we thought. There’s definitely less grip out there than I’ve ever seen it. We all know what tires we’re going to race on, but I know there is a little less grip, a little less bite in some areas. We made some gearing changes, and it came together. We’ve got a good bike. We’ll see if we can make a few tweaks in the morning and keep it rolling.”
Petersen’s teammate Bobby Fong, the winner of one of the four Superbike races held here a year ago, was third fastest with his 2:12.534. Warhorse HSBK Racing Ducati New York’s Loris Baz ended the day fourth in his Road America debut and just a tick ahead of Westby Racing’s Mathew Scholtz.
Panera Bread Ducati’s Kyle Wyman, Gagne’s Fresh N’ Lean Attack Performance Yamaha teammate Josh Herrin, Scheibe Racing BMW’s Hector Barbera and FLY Racing ADR Motorsports’ David Anthony rounded out the top 10 on day one.
The Superbike lap record at Road America is a 2:10.623 lap set by Cameron Beaubier during Superpole last June. Gagne and the rest will have a chance to eclipse that record tomorrow morning in Q2 when he they use qualifying tires.
Supersport
HONOS HVMC Racing’s Richie Escalante led the Supersport field in Q1, his 2:19.386 lap over half a second quicker than his rival Sean Dylan Kelly on the M4 ECSTAR Suzuki. MESA37 Racing’s Stefano Mesa was third, 1.1 seconds off Escalante’s best.
Stock 1000
Mesa, however, added to an already good day by earning provisional pole position in the Stock 1000 class, the racer/team owner besting Altus Motorsports’ Jake Lewis and HONOS HVMC’s Corey Alexander with Travis Wyman Racing’s Travis Wyman and Pegram Racing’s Larry Pegram rounding out the top five.
Junior Cup
In SportbikeTrackGear.com Junior Cup action, Landers Racing’s Ben Gloddy led Q1, besting Veloce Racing’s Maxwell Toth and N2 Racing’s Blake Davis.
King of The Baggers
In what will likely be a preview of Sunday’s Mission King Of The Baggers race, Mission Foods S&S Cycle Indian Challenger’s Tyler O’Hara and H-D Screamin’ Eagle’s Kyle Wyman went back and forth with provisional pole position. The spot eventually went to O’Hara, the winner of round one at Road Atlanta, with his 2:29.153 – just .154 of a second faster than Wyman, who led the first session despite crashing when he missed a shift and ran off into the gravel.
Twins Cup
The Twins Cup qualifying session on Friday afternoon was led by Innovative Motorsports/Mike’s Imports’ Teagg Hobbs, the championship points leader coming into Road America. Hobbs lapped at 2:29.602 to best Kaleb De Keyrel and his Robem Engineering Aprilia RS 660. Jackson Blackmon rode his Jackson Blackmon Racing Yamaha to the third fastest time, putting three different brands of motorcycle (Suzuki, Aprilia, Yamaha) on the provisional front row.
Superbike Q1
- Jake Gagne (Yamaha) 2:11.426
- Cameron Petersen (Suzuki) 2:11.785
- Bobby Fong (Suzuki) 2:12.534
- Loris Baz (Ducati) 2:13.024
- Mathew Scholtz (Yamaha) 2:13.046
- Kyle Wyman (Ducati) 2:13.381
- Josh Herrin (Yamaha) 2:14.244
- Hector Barbera (BMW) 2:14.421
- David Anthony (Suzuki) 2:15.360
- Max Flinders (Yamaha) 2:18.236
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