Jones Honda Stock 1000 rider Ashton Yates came into New Jersey Motorsports Park, the finale round of the 2024 MotoAmerica Championship 10 points down in the Superbike Cup standings. Two first-place results on NJMP’s repaved Thunderbolt Raceway enabled him to erase the deficit and leave the Garden State with not only a 25-point buffer at the top of the final Superbike Cup standings, but more importantly with a $25,000 check that goes to the season champion in MotoAmerica’s race class within a race class.
Yates finished first in Superbike Cup with 10 first-place results, including a consecutive string of number-one finishes in the final seven races of the season. All told, he podiumed in 16 out of the 20 races this season.
“What an incredible weekend at New Jersey for me and the Jones Honda crew,” Yates said. “I brought home the Superbike Cup Championship, and I also finished third in the Stock 1000 Championship. We took two top-10 finishes in Superbike this weekend and a P8 and P2 in Stock 1000. In Stock 1000 Race 1, I had an off-track excursion with the help of another rider, but in Race 2, we came ready to win.
“In Race 2, Hayden and I had a good battle but I couldn’t make my last-lap pass stick, and I finished a close second. Congrats to Hayden Gillim on successfully defending his Stock 1000 title and having a stellar season. We’ve been building momentum all year long, and I can’t believe this year has already come to a close. Something tells me this is just the beginning, and I’m going to keep grinding this off-season whether it’s road racing, supermoto, or dirt track, so I can be fit and ready for 2025.”
The MotoAmerica Superbike Cup was created to enable Stock 1000 riders to also compete in the Steel Commander Superbike races and see how they stack up against the best riders and production-based motorcycles in the country, as well as around the world.
