Josh Herrin has not yet won a Superbike race, but he already looks like a winner.
Yamaha has moved Herrin up to DMG's Superbike class for 2012 and he's had a chance to test the R1 a few times and has acclimated well. When I watched him ride at Las Vegas Motor Speedway a few weeks ago, Herrin looked so much like a veteran Superbike rider that I mistakenly thought the rider I was watching was his two-time DMG Superbike champion teammate (and MotoGP stand-in) Josh Hayes.
Regardless, Herrin's riding was crispy, and he didn't look at any time over the multi-day test that he was still trying to find his way on a Superbike, not at all. He looked like he was at one with the Yamaha, and really having some fun riding it. His feet were never off the pegs and he didn't plow through a corner after missing a braking marker. He has a capable veteran crew, as well, including Crew Chief Rick Hobbs, and Bryce Eikelberger and Mitch Leonard as mechanics.
Who did the twenty-one year old look like on the bike? A young Eric Bostrom, a young Scott Russell, two fellows that in their rookie Superbike season had so much fun riding a Superbike that the fact that they were being paid to do it was just icing on the cake. Still, I was surprised later to learn that Herrin was as fast or faster than Hayes at the Vegas test. Hayes was slowed by issues.
I talked Herrin into coming down to the famous Vegas strip for a photo, and interviewed him. This is a transcript of that interview.
Q Josh Herrin: Superbike rider. I kind of like the sound of that. How about you?
A I like it. I've been waiting a couple of years for it. Yamaha just wanted us to wait. I guess they said it was to try and win a championship, which I'm sure they would've liked. It didn't happen. But I think it was mainly just to maybe mature a little bit more as a rider. I thought I was ready a couple of years ago, but I kind of see why, now, they wanted me to wait a little bit. But it's been really fun for me. The R1 suits me better for some reason. It's really easy to ride, in my opinion. I'm able to get up to speed a little bit quicker on it, than I was on the 600. I'm having fun on it. It's something new. I'm looking forward to racing it, though. I'm getting kind of bored of testing it.
Q What was the first ride on the Superbike like? Where were you?
AIt was Buttonwillow, I guess back in November. It was pretty crazy, to me, at first, because I had rode one of the WERA Endurance bikes, and that bike, compared to the Superbike, was not nearly as fast. It was like, coming out of the corners, the thing just wanted to rip my arms off, that's how fast it was. I never thought about how it would feel, but I guess the way that that motor is, it just, like what gears you need to ride it in, and the way that it feels when you're out on the track, is so much different than I expected. But it's cool, because it's so much different than anything I would've expected, that it makes it a lot of fun.
Q How many times have you ridden the Superbike now?
A Three tests. This is my, I think, my fourth day on it. So tomorrow will be my fifth.
Q Five days. And you said it's actually easier to ride than the 600?
A Well, strength, like, endurance-wise, and stuff, it isn't. It's a lot harder to ride in that sense of it. But as far as moving around, turning the bike, and setup - for some reason, there's a lot more stuff to change on the Superbike, but we haven't even changed anything. It's just been perfect. We haven't had to mess with it at all. Whenever I think about it that way, it's easier to ride. My endurance had to get a little bit better to ride it. When I rode it the first time at Buttonwillow, I could only do three or four laps on it, and I had to come in, where now I can do almost a full race distance and feel fine at the end of it.
Q Some riders, the first time they get on a Superbike, they think, "There's so much power, this is going to be easy. All it's going to be is traction management." What were your immediate thoughts?
A Looking forward to riding the R1, I thought it was going to be really hard. I thought I was going to struggle. I thought that I was going to be a couple of seconds off all the way up until Daytona, at least, and then still not even be at Josh's pace. But I've been lucky, and it's come real natural to me. I've been having a lot of fun on it, and Josh (Hayes) is helping me out a lot. My new team's really awesome. They're a really experienced group of guys, and I couldn't ask for anything more from them. But yeah, like I said, looking forward and when I first got on it, I thought it was going to be really hard to ride, but it ended up being, somehow, suiting my style a lot better than the 600.
Q You've got a Superbike champion for a teammate. How do you view that?
A It's awesome. Somebody with so much experience, he's been around the paddock for a long time. To be able to judge how I'm doing during the test off of somebody that's won the championship two years in a row, and has the pace to win races, it makes it a lot easier to adapt to a bike, just because I can tell by his times, and following him, or stuff like that, how far off I am. Because he's usually a rider that'll do race pace times in testing. He doesn't really mess around during testing. It's nice to have that judgment, riding with him. We get along. I think later on in the year, if not early in the year, we'll be able to help each other, once I get a little bit more used to the bike and learn how to set it up and stuff.
Q What would you say about your 2011 season?
A Not taking advantage of bonus points when I should've. I think that we had two mechanicals during the year, but if I look at it, I only lost by like 15 points. If I would've taken advantage of some more most laps led, or pole points, like I did the last round, then I might've been in a championship hunt, still, even though we had the mechanicals. It's easy for somebody to blame the motorcycle, or to blame the team or something, but I always try to find something that I could improve on the next year, instead of just blaming it on somebody. I think the past couple of years, I've actually learned about bonus points, and I've tried, but it seems like, for some reason, at the very end of the year, I have the ability to get the bonus points. For some reason I just can't do it during the middle of the season. I need to learn how to do it in the middle of the season. I think testing, riding by myself and trying to do some fast laps, and doing a lot of laps consistently, is what it's going to take, because if I can be consistent, then I can get the most laps led and just be smart.
Q If somebody suggested to you that you matured more in 2011 than you had ever before in your racing career, would you agree or disagree?
A I would say that I would agree. I think having the mechanicals, and having the thing happen at Daytona, it really put something in my brain that made me have to fight through that stuff. Getting over the Eslick thing and us moving on, and not banging bars with each other on the track, and trash talking each other, for me, I feel like I - I don't like to say that I matured, because that just doesn't sound right for me to say that about myself, but I feel like I got a lot smarter on the track. I feel like ... I just got smarter as far as racing goes.
Q Would you say you learned more about life off the track in 2011, like the politics of racing and things like that? It seemed like it was an eye-opener there for you, for a while - that you got exposed to quite a bit last season, maybe more than people realize.
A Yeah, I did. But I also learned last year that sometimes you want to express your emotions, but sometimes you just need to be a professional and keep those things in. Maybe look around you and see who's around before you say things. Lucky for me, I've, a lot of times I've not acted professional at the track, and Yamaha's put up with it and kind of coached me through it, and I'm really grateful for that, because I think a lot of teams would've taken that as immaturity and not wanted that around their team. But I think that's, for sure, what I learned the most this year, is just to kind of be a calmer person at the track and not be so angry when things don't go my way. You can't always have your way, and you don't always win.
Q What have been the struggles of your racing career?
A guess ... I don't feel like I've ever had any struggles, really, but it's just been learning. Learning new things. the reality that I have to deal with every day is that there's 20-22 guys on any given weekend that want my ride, they want my job. So that is what I have to deal with.
