By Dean AdamsBeaubier In The Clear After Superbike
Sweep Of NJMP
After Six Rounds, Four-Time Champ Leads By 84 Points
MILLVILLE, NJ (September 13, 2020) – Monster Energy Attack Performance Yamaha’s Cameron Beaubier leaves New Jersey Motorsports Park and heads to Barber Motorsports Park this week with a massive 84-point lead in the 2020 MotoAmerica Superbike Championship after, ahem, what was another walk-in-the-park victory for the four-time series champion.
While it’s too early to hand him the number-one plate with three rounds and eight races remaining the series, it’s about time to fire up the engraver.
Sunday’s win at NJMP came in a shortened race after a red flag was thrown on the second lap when Bradley Ward crashed his FLY Racing ADR Motorsports Kawasaki, putting debris on the racetrack. As he did on the first start, Beaubier grabbed the holeshot and never looked back, opening up a lead and maintaining it to the finish. At the completion of the 14 laps, Beaubier was 2.884 seconds ahead of his pursuers.
“Truthfully, I thought I was going to have a little advantage on these guys going into the second part of that race after the red flag because I was on that harder option tire,” Beaubier said. “I knew the softer tire heat cycles, and the grip definitely drops a little bit. I was riding as hard as I could from them. I was barely, barely inching away and sometimes I really wasn’t. I’m super happy that we had a good weekend here in New Jersey. It was an incredible weekend. We had perfect weather both days. It was great to ride in front of all these fans. We just need to keep going. We can’t get comfortable because both these guys keep making steps. We need to keep searching too. I’m just having so much fun riding right now and everything’s going good. I’m looking forward to getting on my bike at Barber. We had a good test there at the beginning of the season. Should be good.”
Two of those pursuing Beaubier raced to the bitter end with his teammate Jake Gagne drafting past Westby Racing’s Mathew Scholtz at the finish line by .014 of a second with the two fighting it out for the duration. In addition to the battle on track, that pairing is also fighting it out for second in the title chase. Gagne now leads Scholtz by just six points.
“Yeah, it’s a great way to finish it, obviously,” Gagne said of his weekend that featured two crashes. “It’s probably been one of the toughest weekends in a long time. Usually one crash in a weekend is enough, and that’s more than we need. But two days in a row and crashing out the first lap of the race yesterday is just always a bummer. But I learned from it. It was a good race. We were all a little bummed to see that red flag there in that first start. I think we all wanted to go – except maybe Cam, I think we all wanted to go the full distance there. But I got off to a good start. Ran around the first kind of half of the 14-lap race. I knew Mat (Scholtz) was right on me. I knew it was Mat. Then Mat came by me on the front straightaway and passed me into one. I got an opportunity to kind of check some stuff out. Like he said, there were some sections I had him a little bit, some sections he was faster than me. So, we were kind of teeter-tottering. Going into the last lap, I wanted to try to get him into one. I felt pretty good in one. I know he was really strong in there, but I figured if I maybe could get inside of him, but he closed the door. Didn’t let that happen. For me, I knew it was going to be really tough to try to make a pass anywhere. I knew Mat knows this track and it’s tough on Superbikes. You really got to push it in there. Once I didn’t make that pass in one, I was thinking about that last turn. I knew if I stayed on him, I felt like the last turn was one of my strong sections. I could kind of just get in his draft if I timed it perfectly. Luckily that’s what I did. I just timed that thing perfectly by a hair there. Hats off to Mat. It was fun battling. It was fun to bring a race down to the last lap. It feels like it’s kind of been a little while since that happened. Hats off to Cam. Hats off to Yamaha. It’s good to have a couple Yamahas back up here. We’ll be back at Barber in a couple days. Looking forward to it.”
Soon after Scholtz took over second in the final laps, both he and Gagne were baulked by lapped traffic but Scholtz may have gotten the worst of it which allowed Gagne to claw his way back for his last-lap attack.
“There were certain sections of the track that I was struggling with and where Jake (Gagne) was faster,” Scholtz said. “On the final lap I kind of got stuck behind Sam (Verderico). Jake definitely beat me. Hats off to him. But in the back of my mind I always kind of have that, if I didn’t catch Sam at that point. But it is what it is. I’m just very thankful to be up here on the podium after crashing in morning warmup. Well done to Cam (Beaubier). He’s absolutely flying. I’m kind of happy that we weren’t so far back behind Cam. Just really looking forward to Barber next week. It’s definitely the strongest track for me. I know Cam and Jake both go well there too, so let’s do some more battles.”
Bobby Fong was next, the M4 ECSTAR Suzuki rider finishing some four seconds ahead of his teammate Toni Elias, the Spaniard failing to match the pace that earned him his first podium of the season on Sunday.
KATO Fastening/StoneCastle/KWR Ducati’s Kyle Wyman was sixth after finishing fourth on Saturday, the New Yorker getting the better of Altus Motorsports’ Cameron Petersen on Sunday. FLY Racing’s David Anthony rode his Suzuki GSX-R1000 to ninth with Travis Wyman Racing’s Travis Wyman rounding out the top 10 on his BMW.
After six rounds, Beaubier leads Gagne by 84 points, 275-191, with Scholtz third on 185 points. Fong is fourth with 138, 22 clear of Elias and 26 ahead of Wyman.
Superbike Race 2
Cameron Beaubier (Yamaha)
Jake Gagne (Yamaha)
Mathew Scholtz (Yamaha)
Bobby Fong (Suzuki)
Toni Elias (Suzuki)
Kyle Wyman (Ducati)
Cameron Petersen (Suzuki)
Corey Alexander (Kawasaki)
David Anthony (Suzuki)
Travis Wyman (BMW)
Kelly Back On Top; Landers Absolutely
Perfect At NJMP
Kelly Over Paasch And Escalante In Supersport Thriller
MILLVILLE, NJ (September 13, 2020) – The 2020 MotoAmerica Supersport class is currently the most competitive in the series and it was never more so than in Sunday’s second race at New Jersey Motorsports Park with Sean Dylan Kelly winning a 20-lap dogfight with championship rivals Brandon Paasch and Richie Escalante.
Meanwhile, Rocco Landers leaves New Jersey and heads to next weekend’s round of the 2020 MotoAmerica Series with the biggest smile in the paddock, the youngster from Oregon having a perfect weekend in the Liqui Moly Junior Cup and Twins Cup classes with four victories in four races.
Supersport – Thriller In Millville
The race of the day was in MotoAmerica’s Supersport class, and the three leaders in the season championship put on an absolute show for the fans. Early in the 20-lap event, Sean Dylan Kelly, Brandon Paasch, and Richie Escalante let it be known that they were in it to win, and the trio raced closely and passed each other often. Kelly, aboard his M4 ECSTAR Suzuki made a breathtaking pass up the inside of Escalante, in a spot where it didn’t seem like a pass was possible. And then, it was Paasch’s turn. Riding his Celtic HSBK Racing Yamaha, the local rider made almost the same pass on Escalante and in the very same turn. The only difference was that the opening was even more narrow, and Paasch left tire rubber on Escalante’s leathers on the way through.
At the checkers, Kelly took the win, Paasch finished second, and Escalante race his HONOS Kawasaki across the stripe to complete the podium.
“I’m really happy we’re here in the P1 spot, especially after yesterday,” Kelly said. “We had a tough day. Some issues and couldn’t even stay with the group with these two guys. It’s tough to have days like that where you just have to settle for third, which is obviously not bad, but knowing that you can fight up in the top group, it’s something tough. But the most important thing is my team worked really hard. We came in today and clearly showed that we can bounce back. They worked really hard last night on the bike. Not only that, but we also worked on some things. I did my homework, watched the races to see where they were clearly faster than me. Showed that we came back stronger than yesterday and really happy about that. The race was really, really fun. Both Richie and Brandon were right there the whole time. We had close passes, but I think all really, really good. It was good. Like Richie said, everyone had different lines and doing different stuff. So, it was definitely pretty fun. Just really happy to get these 25 points. I know that we just need to keep on working. Every racetrack is a different story. So, we’re just going to keep on going. We still have a few weekends to go and we’re going to keep on fighting.”
Twins Cup – Landers Again
By the way Rocco Landers has been dominating two different race classes this season – Liqui Moly Junior Cup and Twins Cup – you might think that Sunday’s Twins Cup race two was processional. And, if you’re talking about Landers only, you’d be right since he put in another dominant performance aboard his SportbikeTrackGear.com Roadracingworld.com Suzuki to win by nearly five seconds.
The battle for the rest of the podium was definitely the must-see part of the race with Hayden Schultz Racing Yamaha’s Hayden Schultz and Robem Engineering/Plastic Surgery Racing Suzuki’s Dominic Doyle dicing all the way to the checkered flag. At the stripe, it was Schultz over Doyle in a near-photo-finish, the pair separated by just .095 of a second. Meanwhile, 1-833-CJKNOWS Accident & Injury Law Yamaha rider Kaleb De Keyrel was even closer to Doyle, and he just missed out on a podium finish by .055 of a second.
“On the start, I thought I had a good initial launch, but I had trouble getting it from first to second, so he got by me there,” Landers said. “So, my goal was first or second into turn one and try to keep the lead at least in turn three. When I looked back, I saw, coming out of turn five I think, I saw Kaleb (De Keyrel) was there. I was like, ‘Oh, it’s going to be me and Kaleb the entire race fighting.’ And then I looked back the next lap and there was more space. So, I was like, ‘I’ll try to get a few good laps and put in some tire management.’ Then, on lap six or so, I started to see some raindrops. So, I was like, ‘Take it easy” because I had six seconds or so. I was like, ‘There’s no sense in throwing away a win trying to get some good laps.’ So, I’m happy.”
Liqui Moly Junior Cup – Landers, Landers, Landers, Landers
In Sunday’s Liqui Moly Junior Cup race two, Landers completed a perfect weekend by taking the checkers first in his fourth race. And the Norton Motorsports/Ninja400R/Dr. Farr/Wonder CBD Kawasaki rider did it with authority, crossing the finish line by nearly nine seconds over Joseph LiMandri Jr., the Bauce Racing/CyberSafe Solutions/JL62 Racing Kawasaki rider a very happy, first-time podium finisher in second place at his home track. Third place went to Quarterley Racing/On Track Development Kawasaki’s Ben Gloddy, who equaled his third-place finish in Saturday’s race one with his second podium in a row.
“I’m stoked,” Landers declared after his win. “It’s a great weekend. This is my new favorite track. After the first lap, I was trying to get a couple good laps. I figured it would be me and Sam (Lochoff) the whole race, and then lap two, I looked back, and he wasn’t there. I had a moment going through turn six, I believe, mid-race. I just tried to settle down in the mid-30 lap times. I’m stoked. Awesome weekend.”
