Random notes, comments, statistics, musings, and bits of trivia from the MotoAmerica Superbikes at Ridge event:

Tight At The Top

Five rounds and 11 races into the 2024 Steel Commander Superbike Championship, and we are just past the halfway point of the season with four rounds and nine races left to decide it all. In the ten-year history of the MotoAmerica series, the points standings have never been this close at the top and at this point in the season. Less than 10 points separate Wrench Motorcycles’ Bobby Fong, Attack Performance/Progressive/Yamaha Racing teammates Jake Gagne and Cameron Petersen, and Warhorse HSBK Racing Ducati’s Josh Herrin. And some of the riders below the top four are also not out of contention for the Championship, either.

We’ve got three races coming up next weekend at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca, and they are absolutely critical. A rider who gets hot at the “dry lagoon” and runs the table with three wins could break from the pack with momentum to propel them into the final three rounds of the season. But don’t count on it. The way this season has gone, one rider winning all three races at Laguna is a very tall task. We shall soon see.

Fast Times At Ridge Mount High

As the years pass at Ridge Motorsports Park, and as is the case with most racetracks, the racing surface improves. More and more tire rubber gets embedded into the asphalt aggregate, reducing the abrasiveness and providing more rubber-to-rubber contact. Plus, riders improve, bikes improve, and the Dunlop tires improve, too.

As a result, a bevy of new lap records was set again this past weekend on the 16-turn, 2.47-mile road course. In Stock 1000, Real Steel Motorsports Honda rider Hayden Gillim continued his assault on the record books as he set a new class lap record of 1:40.904 in Saturday morning’s Qualifying 2. Then, later in the day on Saturday, Gillim did a lap of 1:41.435 during Stock 1000 race one, which was a new race lap record.

Also on Saturday, in Supersport Qualifying 2, Rahal Ducati Moto’s PJ Jacobsen set a new class lap record of 1:42.524. Then, during Sunday’s banger of a Supersport race two (more on that later), Strack Racing Yamaha’s Mathew Scholtz established a new race lap record of 1:43.102.

In the Mission Super Hooligan National Championship, Saddlemen/Harley-Davidson’s Jake Lewis did a lap of 1:45.554 on his way to winning Sunday’s race two, which was a new race lap record in the high-handlebar-heroes class.

Mikayla Moore just goes faster and faster every time she is on track. The defending Royal Enfield Build. Train. Race. Champion and current points leader ended her weekend at Ridge by setting both a new class lap record and a race lap record of 2:02.327 during Sunday’s race two.

Sunday’s Supersport Banger

During Sunday’s Supersport race two, immediately after Strack Racing Yamaha‘s Mathew Scholtz overtook Rahal Ducati Moto’s PJ Jacobsen for the race lead, which resulted in Jacobsen crashing out of the race, MotoAmerica Race Control carefully studied the incident by analyzing the video evidence provided by their own dedicated cameras. They ruled that the matter was a “racing incident,” and Scholtz went on to win the race while Jacobsen did not finish (DNF). Shortly after the checkered flag, Rahal Ducati Moto filed a formal protest against Mathew Scholtz. Race Control re-evaluated the incident and ultimately upheld the protest. Scholtz was given a three-second penalty for “causing a crash.”

Ultimately, the outcome was that Rahal Ducati Moto won the protest, but Scholtz still won the race. The three-second penalty wasn’t enough to change the finishing order, however. Instead of winning Sunday’s race two by 8.530 seconds over Jacobsen’s teammate Kayla Yaakov, Scholtz ended up winning by 5.530 seconds. Still a decent margin of victory either way for Scholtz.

A Plethora Of Podiums

Two riders from two different race classes celebrated similar accomplishments on Saturday at Ridge Motorsports Park. With Vision Wheel M4 ECSTAR Suzuki’s Xavi Forés finishing on the podium in Steel Commander Superbike race one, he became the only professional motorcycle road racer in the world to reach the podium in World Superbike, British Superbike, Germany’s IDM Superbike, Italy’s CIV Superbike, and MotoAmerica Superbike.

Also on Saturday, when KWR/Harley-Davidson’s Cody Wyman won Mission Super Hooligan National Championship race one, he became the second rider in MotoAmerica history to podium in four different race classes: Junior Cup, Twins Cup, Stock 1000, and Super Hooligan. Who, you might ask, was the first rider to accomplish the feat? The answer is Rocco Landers, and he podiumed in his fourth MotoAmerica race class as recently as the previous round at Brainerd International Raceway. Landers had already podiumed in Junior Cup, Twins Cup, and Supersport. And, at Brainerd, his podium finish in Mission King Of The Baggers brought his tally to four.

Congratulations to both Xavi and Cody, and also a belated congratulations to Rocco. Take a well-deserved bow, gentlemen.

Caught In A Trap

After the strange phenomenon in which BPR Racing Yamaha Stock 1000 rider Tyler Bengford was the fastest man in the land at Brainerd International Raceway, things returned to normal with a Steel Commander Superbike rider going the fastest overall at Ridge Motorsports Park:

Steel Commander Superbike

Warhorse HSBK Racing Ducati’s Josh Herrin went 165.7 miles per hour on lap 12 of the 14 he completed during Friday’s Steel Commander Superbike Qualifying 1.

Stock 1000

Team Brazil’s Danilo Lewis achieved a maximum trap speed of 159.9 miles per hour on the 11th and final lap he did aboard his BMW M 1000 RR during Friday’s Stock 1000 Qualifying 1.

Supersport

N2 Racing/BobbleHeadMoto Yamaha rider Blake Davis achieved the highest Supersport trap speed of 149.7 miles per hour on his 15th and final lap during Saturdayh’s Qualifying 2.

Mission Super Hooligan National Championship

S&S/Indian Motorcycle’s Troy Herfoss got his Indian FTR1200 up to a class maximum trap speed of 144.6 miles per hour on lap 5 of Sunday’s 8-lap Mission Super Hooligan National Championship race two.

Royal Enfield Build. Train. Race.

Camille Conrad maxed out her Royal Enfield Continental GT 650 at 106.5 miles per hour on lap 7 of Saturday’s 8-lap race one.

It Don’t Mean A Thing If You Ain’t Got That Swingarm

One of the secrets to Wrench Motorcycles’ Bobby Fong’s success in Steel Commander Superbike is the custom-engineered and fabricated parts that David Anthony’s ADR Motorsports have created for Fong’s Yamaha YZF-R1. The bike’s swingarm is an absolute work of art and science, resplendent in CNC-machined and welded billet aluminum. After Fong’s podium finish in Sunday’s Steel Commander Superbike race two, he revealed that his team actually tried out another entirely new swingarm in Sunday morning warm up, and Fong used it in the race. “Today was great,” Fong said. “We rode good. I felt like the bike was quite good. We tried a new swingarm this morning, and I was really unsure of it. I’m still unsure of it, but it worked great.”

Who’ll Stop The Rain?

Much to everyone’s surprise on Saturday, rain descended on Ridge Motorsport Park, and it made things interesting for the day’s races with some of them officially declared “dry” even though there was light precipitation falling. In Supersport race one, the droplets on the broadcast camera lenses around the circuit were a telltale sign that it was, in fact, raining. But, the track surface wasn’t completely wet.

When you’re the rider in the lead, you take on the added responsibility of helping to decide if the rain is falling hard enough to red-flag the race so that the field can come in, replace their slick tires with rain tires, and restart the race. But, even if you as the lead rider signal that it is raining (by waving your hand, for example), it is still Race Control’s decision whether to stop the race. You may end up waving your hand in vain if Race Control doesn’t agree with you, and if you wave too much or slow down too much, you may get passed and lose the race if the red flag is never shown.

Strack Racing Yamaha’s Mathew Scholtz was in the lead of Saturday’s Supersport race one, and as the race continued, the rain did intensify a little bit even though it was still considered light and not dampening the track to the point where grip was considered treacherous. As it turned out, Scholtz won the race without incident.

Afterwards, I asked him if he considered putting his hand up to let Race Control know they might want to stop the race. Scholtz’s answer was interesting and funny: “I learned from Barber back in 2021 that it doesn’t really matter. At this point, I’m just going to ride until I crash, I guess. It is what it is.”

What Scholtz was referring to, and you probably recall, too–especially if you’ve seen the clip we’ve run innumerous times on our social media channels of Scholtz and his Westby Racing Yamaha Superbike sliding in tandem down the fully wet and slick Barber Motorsports Park track as if they were on a Slip ’N Slide–is that he has raced in conditions far worse than what occurred during Saturday’s Supersport race one, so he wasn’t going to even bother trying to get the race stopped.

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