Random notes, comments, statistics, musings, and bits of trivia from MotoAmerica Superbikes at Mid-Ohio:
Herrin Times Two
Thirty-four-year-old Josh Herrin has now won 15 Superbike races in his career. That ties him with Eric Bostrom and Freddie Spencer for 11th on the all-time AMA Superbike wins list. And yet, until this past weekend, he had never done the double by sweeping both Superbike races in a single weekend. Well, now, he has. Also, Herrin, for the first time, is in his second year as a Superbike rider for the same team, and it’s paying off. Not only has he notched his first Superbike double, but he is solidly in the 2024 Steel Commander Superbike Championship lead by 52 points with just two rounds and five races left to go. The 2013 AMA Superbike Champion seems destined to add “2024 MotoAmerica Superbike Champion” to his resume. And that definitely needs to be “duly noted.”
High Speeds At Mid-Ohio
Six race classes competed on the newly paved 2.4-mile, 15-turn Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course, and below are the riders who achieved the highest trap speeds in their respective classes. Tytlers Cycle Racing‘s JD Beach topped them all aboard his BMW M 1000 RR Superbike:
Superbike:
JD Beach: 185.4 miles per hour (Race 2, Lap 3 of 10)
Supersport:
Teagg Hobbs: 161.5 miles per hour (Race 2, Lap 9 of 12)
Mission King Of The Baggers:
Kyle Wyman: 161.5 miles per hour (Practice 1, Lap 1 of 14)
Mission Super Hooligan National Championship:
Cody Wyman: 157.7 miles per hour (Race 2, Lap 3 of 7)
Junior Cup:
Solly Mervis: 123.9 miles per hour (Race 2, Lap 2 of 11)
Royal Enfield Build. Train. Race.:
Camille Conrad & Shea McGregor: 116.5 miles per hour (Race 1, Lap 5 of 6)
The Lap Times They Are A-Changin’
The Superbike lap record at Mid-Ohio is the only one-to-one comparable record that carries over from the pre-MotoAmerica era. Ben Spies set that record way back on August 2, 2008–more than 16 years ago–with a fastest lap of 1:23.639 during Superbike final qualifying. Just prior to last weekend, we asked Spies (who is now team principal for Rahal Ducati Moto) if he thought his record would be beaten. Surprisingly, he said “No.” But, come on, that record has stood for nearly as long as Spies’ protégé Kayla Yaakov has been alive.
Well, he was right. In Steel Commander Superbike Qualifying 1 on Friday, Tytlers Cycle Racing’s Cameron Beaubier did a lap of 1:23.904–within .265 of a second of Spies’ record–on lap 14 of the 20 he did in that session. And that was the fastest lap of the weekend and the closest anyone came to eclipsing Ben’s record. Oh, well. There’s always next year.
MotoAmerica’s Supersport class is the closest one to the Daytona SportBike class that existed during the pre-MotoAmerica era. Those bikes were higher spec and with more engine modifications than are allowed even in what we call “Supersport Next Generation.” But then, Daytona SportBike didn’t allow 955cc Ducati V-twins and 750cc Suzuki in-line fours, so a correlation can be made between the two classes.
Rahal Ducati Moto‘s PJ Jacobsen did a fastest lap of 1:27.427 on lap 8 of the 14 he did during Friday’s Supersport Qualifying 1, and that broke the previous record of 1:28.028 set by Cameron Beaubier during Daytona SportBike final qualifying in 2013.
Since this past weekend was the first time the other four MotoAmerica race classes have ever competed at Mid-Ohio, here are the brand-new lap records set in those classes:
Mission King Of The Baggers:
Kyle Wyman: 1.27.872 (Qualifying 1, Lap 9 of 12)
Mission Super Hooligan National Championship:
Jake Lewis: 1:29.592 (Race 2, Lap 5 of 7)
Junior Cup:
Matthew Chapin: 1:36.652 (Qualifying 1, Lap 10 of 15)
Royal Enfield Build. Train. Race.:
Mikayla Moore: 1:45.287 (Race 2, Lap 6 of 6)
Gripping & Ripping
Given that Mid-Ohio was repaved, and it was one of the major factors that brought MotoAmerica to the central Ohio track for the first time in MotoAmerica’s 10-year history, the subject on a lot of people’s minds–from the riders, to the officials, to the teams, and to the fans–was the level of grip provided by the track. Obviously, rain was a factor all weekend long, and provisional qualifying produced faster lap times than did final qualifying for all six race classes. Conversely, the second races in virtually all six race classes produced the higher trap speeds.
Some riders reported that the grip was always a little bit lower in the mornings. The weekend’s Steel Commander Superbike double race winner Josh Herrin said, “The grip changed in every session. It was hard to predict what it was going to be like every time we went out there.”
No one seems to fully understand why the grip was so changeable from one track session to another, but there were a lot of opinions. The most common one mentioned was because the track surface was so new, it was still not “seasoned.” Other opinions were that the surface was still microscopically leaching out oil that is a main incredient in asphalt. Whatever the cause, it’ll be interesting to see how the track is next year if MotoAmerica returns to Mid-Ohio. Most tracks don’t really come into their own till a year or two after they’re repaved. We’ve seen that with the repaved Barber Motorsports Park and also the repaved WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca.
New Jersey Motorsports Park was also repaved last year, so there will be a brand-new racing surface when we return to that facility on September 27 through 29.
Winning Is Everything
Racing a motorcycle is fun. After all, that’s why most MotoAmerica riders started doing it, continue to do it, and for riders like Josh Hayes and Larry Pegram, don’t ever want to stop doing it. I looked closely at Harley-Davidson Factory Racing‘s Kyle Wyman while I sat in on Saturday’s Mission King Of The Baggers race one press conference. He had just finished second to S&S/Indian Motorcycle‘s Troy Herfoss, but Wyman still had the lead in the Championship. Something wasn’t right. Wyman wasn’t smiling, and OK, he did just lose that race, but it occurred to me that he hasn’t been smiling all this season as much as I’m used to seeing him smile. It’s like he’s a slightly different person. I could barely figure out how to ask him what I was perceiving. Thankfully, Wyman is a smart guy and is very intuitive. He knew what I was asking, and he gave me a better answer than the question I gave him:
“I’m riding with a combination of missing out on this championship two years in a row,” Wyman said, “It’s tough to have, in 2022, the title basically taken from me by a DQ. Can’t start the race because of fluid on the track, which every team in this paddock has done. And then, last year, not having the consistency, even though I’ve won the most races in this series, and to miss out on the championship again. It’s a building intensity that I’ve brought into 2024. I don’t think I’m a different person, but I just am trying to do my best every single day. I think that Troy would say the same. We’re two pretty hungry guys. It’s just a really respectful but very intense rivalry, maybe not as respectful between the teams as it is between us as riders, but it’s an intensity that you kind of dream of, really. To have it mean this much. Sure, going to the World Championship (would be great), but I don’t know what could mean more in the U.S. than this (Mission King Of The Baggers) Championship. I would go three years between Superbike podiums. Now, I’m standing up here on the podium every week in second place, trying to force a smile. You walk the line all the time between wanting to win and being really grateful for the position that you’re in. It’s bittersweet. It’s like a high and low feeling, type of thing. Happy and sad. But we’ll try to get him tomorrow.”
And, he did get him on Sunday. Wyman beat Herfoss in race two. Wyman still wasn’t really smiling. But then, neither was Herfoss.
The Greatest Thing I Heard All Weekend
I love Mid-Ohio. I actually moved with my wife, my then two-year-old son, and our cat to take a job at an ad agency in Columbus, Ohio, specifically because I wanted to live near Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course. So, imagine the torture of working for MotoAmerica and living an hour from a racetrack that I uprooted my family and entire life to live near, and we don’t go there for the first 10 years of MotoAmerica’s existence.
But, as much as I love Mid-Ohio, I did not love the run-off area outside of turn six at the end of the back straight. I’ve seen riders like Scott Russell miss turn six and get launched into the air like ski-jumpers only to come back down to earth in that seemingly bottomless pit of a gravel trap located so far below the level of the track. I’ve seen IndyCar drivers like Simon Pagenaud go airborne after missing turn six, drop out of the sky, and end up in the barrier lining the fence way down below.
The first thing I asked after hearing that Mid-Ohio was repaved and that MotoAmerica is going there was, “Did they remove the ‘ski slope’ on the outside of turn six?” No, they did not.
On Friday, I asked Sean Dylan Kelly about that turn, and he said, “I don’t even know what’s over there on the outside of that turn, and I don’t want to find out. I won’t even go over there.”
Well, on Sunday, FIM Safety Officer Dan Argano informed me that turn six is going to be reconfigured during the off-season. The “ski slope” is going to be filled in, and the turn will be reprofiled. That scary drop-off into no-man’s land will finally be gone.
Can I get a “Hallelujah!” from the congregation?
