MotoAmerica: Beaubier Wins COTA Superbike Race Two And Closes To Within Eight Points Of Fong
MotoAmerica: Bobby Fong, Cameron Beaubier Or Josh Herrin? One Of Them Will Be Crowned The 2025 MotoAmerica Superbike Champion In New Jersey, September 26-28.
MotoAmerica: Bobby Fong, Cameron Beaubier Or Josh Herrin? One Of Them Will Be Crowned The 2025 MotoAmerica Superbike Champion In New Jersey, September 26-28.
Tytlers Cycle Racing’s Cameron Beaubier came into the Circuit of The Americas round of the 2025 MotoAmerica Superbike Championship trailing Bobby Fong by 17 points. After two thrilling races in Texas, Beaubier leaves just eight points adrift of Fong.
Bring on New Jersey Motorsports Park.
All three of the championship contenders had good weekends at COTA. While Beaubier was second in race one and won race two, Attack Performance Progressive Yamaha Racing’s Fong was third in race one and second in race two. Warhorse HSBK Racing Ducati’s Josh Herrin won race one and was third in race two.
So, here’s how it shakes down as the series heads to the finale at New Jersey Motorsports Park in two weeks: Fong leads the way with 314 points, eight more than Beaubier and 22 more than Herrin.
To make an already climactic ending even more so, the finale at NJMP is a tripleheader, which means there are 75 points on the table. Any of the three can leave the Jersey Shore with the championship.
Beaubier won Sunday’s race at COTA by 1.1 seconds over Fong with Herrin third, 14.2 seconds behind. Beaubier made his statement early in Sunday’s race, dropping the hammer, dicing a bit with Fong on the opening lap, and then getting a gap back to the championship points leader.
It didn’t take long for Herrin to figure out that he didn’t have the pace, and he was never a factor in this one. Instead, he ended up fighting off Vision Wheel M4 ECSTAR Suzuki’s Sean Dylan Kelly and Fong’s teammate Jake Gagne.
He did so, ending up third by less than a second over Kelly with Gagne another half a second behind.
At the front, Beaubier was nearly flawless. Key word: Nearly.
On the seventh lap, Beaubier came as close to crashing a motorcycle as you can without going down. Fong took advantage, but Beaubier was quickly back on pace, caught the Yamaha man, and repassed him. From there, it was just a matter of keeping Fong behind him, which he did. By 1.1 seconds.
The win was the fifth of the year for Beaubier and the 70th of his Superbike career. It also sets him up nicely for the finale in New Jersey with his goal of becoming a six-time MotoAmerica Superbike Champion.
Fong has other plans, as he considers his three-two finishes at COTA a win. He looks forward to NJMP as he’s always gone well there. Herrin, meanwhile, knows he’s in a bit of a pickle, but he’s in a better position than he was pre-COTA.
Kelly ended up fourth, besting Gagne by less than a second.
Real Steel Honda’s JD Beach inherited sixth place when his teammate Hayden Gillim crashed late in the race. Fortunately, Gillim was able to remount and finish seventh.
FLO4LAW’s Benjamin Smith, Jones Honda’s Ashton Yates, and Aftercare Scheibe Racing’s Danilo Lewis rounded out the top 10.
Notable of the non-finishers – and winner of the cruelest weekend contest -was Vision Wheel M4 ECSTAR Suzuki’s Richie Escalante. In Saturday’s race, Escalante’s motorcycle failed him on the last lap while he was running fourth. On Sunday, the bike failed him again on the first lap.
Superbike Race 2
- Cameron Beaubier (BMW)
- Bobby Fong (Yamaha)
- Josh Herrin (Ducati)
- Sean Dylan Kelly (Suzuki)
- Jake Gagne (Yamaha)
- JD Beach (Honda)
- Hayden Gillim (Honda)
- Benjamin Smith (Yamaha)
- Ashton Yates (Honda)
- Danilo Lewis (BMW)
Quotes
Josh Herrin – Third Place
“I woke up this morning in a lot more pain. I think I just had to grit it yesterday, and I think the bone doesn’t like it. Today was definitely harder on me. I wouldn’t say that’s why we weren’t able to be fighting with those guys. Cam (Beaubier) just left and was really fast, and I wasn’t. I tried to hang on. Really that’s it. The tire pressure was set a little bit lower than what we had in practice and qualifying just because it was so hot, to allow them to come up to temperature to be where we had them in practice. Honestly, I didn’t like the way the bike was feeling, doing that. I felt like I was riding a different bike than I was yesterday. But he (Beaubier) was riding fast. It sucks because all the hard work we did yesterday, we just gave it back basically today. Now we have a lot of work to do in Jersey. I’m super grateful that I was able to win a race yesterday. For sure, if you asked me at the start of yesterday, I didn’t think I would have been capable of it. At least kept us at the same spot, or maybe a little bit better than what we came in, so that way when we go to Jersey for the last three races, we at least are still there. We’re not just completely out of it. Congrats to Cam on the win. He deserved that one. He took off right from the beginning. I was just panicking to try to keep up. So, congrats to him. Hopefully get some rain in Jersey to help us out.”
Bobby Fong – Second Place
“We knew coming in here it might be a struggle. I am definitely thankful to get on the podium here because there’s a lot of fast guys. It was super greasy out there. It’s really easy to have moments out there. The track is kind of weird. Cameron (Beaubier) almost went down. It kind of looked like he was doing the same thing. I took the lead for a second, and I had a few moments. I’m like, ‘we have a good gap behind me.’ I tried to back it off and then went back by and like, ‘damn it, now we got to push again.’ I was trying to go a little bit slower because I was taking too many risks. But he rode a good pace. He didn’t make any mistakes, honestly. Kudos to him. It’s hard to do it in this heat. But we’re definitely looking forward to Jersey. Three races there. I think it should be fun.”
Cameron Beaubier – Winner
“Everything flashed in front of my eyes (when he almost crashed). All the hard work we’ve been putting in. The front end came back, thankfully. I was struggling pretty bad with the front end there in some of the long right-handers. My gap just started closing, a tenth by a tenth. Bob (Fong) was closing in on me. That was a really, really hard race. I haven’t had that hard of a race in a long, long time. I was pushing as hard as I could the entire race. Honestly, I felt awesome at the beginning of the race. My bike was just hooked up. I saw I did a couple 2:07’s and straight into the low 2:08s. Felt awesome. But it made me a little nervous for the rest of the race because I was doing three laps all weekend, and that’s pretty much all I had. I had a hard pace, had a pushing pace, with what’s going on with my wrist. Just definitely had to grind that one out. That one was for my team. The Tytlers guys have been working so hard. Even after my dumb ass made a crash on the bicycle earlier this week, they still stuck behind me and got me comfortable on the bike and just kept motivating me all weekend, like ‘you can do this.”’ So, thanks to them. I’m stoked that we’re back in it. Bob pushed me so hard the whole race. So, hats off to him, because the pace was really hot. We’ll see what happens at New Jersey, but at least we’re somewhat back in it.”
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