It might have been a difficult day with ever-changing weather conditions wreaking havoc on the schedule in road racing’s return to Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course, but it was definitely a banner day for Josh Herrin.
Warhorse HSBK Racing Ducati’s Herrin took a commanding start-to-finish victory, his fourth of the season and second in a row, to stretch his lead in the Steel Commander Superbike Championship to 33 points on a challenging day at Mid-Ohio.
The victory came after a delay in the schedule as a rainstorm moved through the area, making conditions difficult at best. The track, however, dried and the Superbike grid took to the track for a familiarization session before everyone started the race on slicks.
Herrin dropped the hammer from the get-go and, along with his teammate Loris Baz, threw down some quick laps as the pair quickly opened a gap to the goings on behind them.
Herrin would gap Baz and those two were well clear of Tytlers Cycle Racing’s JD Beach, who would end up coming under pressure from his slow-starting teammate Cameron Beaubier. Beaubier’s woes were immediate with the five-time MotoAmerica Superbike Champion unsettled off the start and completing the first lap in sixth before picking his way through to fourth prior to catching and passing Beach on the seventh lap.
By then Herrin and Baz were long gone and it appeared as though third was going to be as good as it would get for Beaubier. Not so as Baz gifted Beaubier second place when the Frenchman crashed his Ducati Panigale V4 R out of a comfortable second and a potential Ducati one-two
Herrin crossed the line 18.8 seconds ahead of second-placed Beaubier with Beach 3.5 seconds behind his teammate in third.
Real Steel Motorsports’ Hayden Gillim was a popular fourth on his Stock 1000-spec Honda CBR1000RR-R SP with EasyHealthPlans.com/TopPro Racing’s Sean Dylan Kelly fifth.
Next came Wrench Motorcycles’ Bobby Fong with the Californian fighting his way through to get enough points to move within striking distance of second in the championship.
Jones Honda’s Ashton Yates, FLO4LAW Racing’s Benjamin Smith, Attack Performance/Progressive/Yamaha Racing’s Jake Gagne and Aftercare Scheibe Racing’s Ezra Beaubier rounded out the top 10.
Gagne had suffered with an early off-track excursion that put him well back in the pack, but he scored enough points to stay in second place in the title chase.
Notable non-finishers were Baz and Vision Wheel M4 ECSTAR Suzuki teammates Brandon Paasch and Richie Escalante with all three crashing out of the race.
Herrin heads into tomorrow’s race two with a 30-point lead over Fong, 219-189. Gagne is third with 186 points with Beaubier moving to fourth with 168 points – one better than Gagne’s teammate Cameron Petersen, who was forced to sit out the race after failing to pass his medical exam after his third crash of the weekend in morning warm-up.
Superbike Race One
- Josh Herrin (Ducati)
- Cameron Beaubier (BMW)
- JD Beach (BMW)
- Hayden Gillim (Honda)
- Sean Dylan Kelly (BMW)
- Bobby Fong (Yamaha)
- Ashton Yates (Honda)
- Benjamin Smith (Yamaha)
- Jake Gagne (Yamaha)
- Ezra Beaubier (BMW)
Quotes…
Josh Herrin – Winner
“If you look back at least the last seven years, whenever the conditions are like that, I think subconsciously I just, almost like when you see motocross guys or (Mathew) Scholtz yelling on the grid right before, something about the fear side of it just does something to me at the beginning that allows me to just do what happened today. I couldn’t even explain why. The one big
advantage that I would say that I had was this morning I had a feeling that in case the track was like it was this morning and just slippery, when I came in and got my second tire, we didn’t do the Q. We did a race tire. Then I went out and did one lap, like one lap came, sat in the pits kind of like I would on the grid. Then put my head down like it was the start of the race to see what to expect from the tire, and it just helped a ton. I never thought about doing that before, but it just I think made a huge difference. I felt a lot more confident than I think I would have if I hadn’t. I knew I had to get in front of those guys at the beginning because with that knowledge of what the tire was going to be like, I wanted to just take advantage of it and try to go. I don’t know what my gap was at the beginning. I think third was right there, but I think further back we might have had a little bit bigger gap, so I was stoked that that worked out. The guys have been working super hard all weekend. We got lucky that we got that Thursday test because we didn’t come here and test like some of the other teams earlier in the year. But it was a weird win, because there’s been wins that meant more but for some reason it was more emotional than a lot of the wins. Just not having Griffin (his son) at the track. He’s starting to talk a lot more and understand things. Right before the race, Rachel sent me a video and he now recognizes (Cameron) Beaubier. She says, ‘Who is that?’ ‘He’s like, “Beaubier!’ Just the things he does, it’s like a whole new motivation like it was whenever he was first born. It’s just been an amazing year and I owe it all to my family and my team. It’s a shame that Loris (Baz) went down because it would have helped us in the points, and it also just would have been nice to see him get on the podium because he’s been working hard all year. Just thank you to everybody. Thank you to the huge turnout of fans in Mid-Ohio. This was always one of my favorite tracks to come to. It’s nice seeing stacked fans out there. So, huge shout out to them. Thank you to everybody. Hopefully we have another one tomorrow.”
Cameron Beaubier – Second Place
“What happened on the start… I had a little issue with my launch control. Honestly, after that happened, I kind of rolled and then kind of backed up. I was pressing my buttons, trying to figure out what was going on. Got shuffled back. Was struggling to get going there. It seems like (Josh) Herrin and (Loris) Baz, they were able to put their heads down right away and ride off into the sunset. I was struggling for the rear tire to come in. I could see other guys were too. Whatever they did today was working. Herrin rode awesome. He was three corners ahead of me or four corners ahead of me there at the end. Just hats off to the Tytlers guys. Obviously, I want to win. I want to close that championship gap up, but the best we could do today was second. It’s awesome having JD (Beach) up here on the podium, too. Go do our homework for tomorrow and come out swinging.”
JD Beach – Third Place
“Thursday at the end of the day we found something with the bike, and I was really starting to feel good on it again. Then, yesterday I was feeling good on the race tire, and then when we went to put the soft tire on, we had a bike malfunction. So, I didn’t get to put in a lap, but I had good pace. The race today, it might sound kind of weird, but this feels better than the last two weeks. I love dirt track, but road racing is where I want to be at right now. I’ve put the team through hell, pulled them back out a little bit, and then I put them right back in there. It’s been a struggle. But to get this third place feels amazing. It’s not going to be this easy every race, but we’ll keep working at it.”
