2020 MotoAmerica
Round 7 – Alabama
Images by Brian J. Nelson
MotoAmerica at Barber Motorsports Park in Alabama saw Cameron Beaubier continue his winning streak, taking two race wins, in the opening race from Jake Gage and Mathew Scholtz, and in Race 2 from Scholtz and Bobby Fong. The result saw his lead expand to over 100-points, now 325-points to Gagne’s 222, while Scholtz is third on 221.
Cameron Petersen was unstopped in Stock 1000, taking both race wins, with Stegano Mesa and Corey Alexander completing the podium in Race 1. Race two saw Alexander runner up, while Michael Gilbert claimed the final podium position. Petersen sits on 215-points leading the standings, from Alexander (184) and Gilbert (125).
Richie Escalante was untouchable in the Supersport races, winning Race 1 by over 13-seconds from Sean Dylan Kelly, while Jason Aguilar was third. Race 2 was similar with Dylan Kelly over eight-seconds behind, with Brandon Paasch third. Escalante leads Dylan Kelly 311-271, with Paasch third overall on 201-points.
Rocco Landers won the Liqui Moly Junior Cup championship over the weekend, with another two wins to his name, sitting on 335-points, to Samuel Lochoff’s 226, while Dominic Doyle is third in the standings on 217-points.
Lander’s victories extended to the Twins Cup, where he won from Hayden Schultz and Jackson Blackmon in Race 1, and Kaleb De Keyrel and Schultz in Race 2. Lander’s holds a narrower lead to De Keyrel in the Twins, 227-points to 178, while Schultz is third on 134.
Superbikes Race 1
Cameron Beaubier celebrated his 50th win in the premier class of the MotoAmerica series in what was his 105th start, in Race 1 at the Alabama MotoAmerica round over the weekend at Barber Motorsports Park . That translates to a winning percentage of 47.6. In other words, Beaubier has won nearly half of the Superbike races in which he has started. Like the majority of his wins in 2020, it was a dominant one.
Beaubier ran wide on the opening lap in turn five, allowing Mathew Scholtz to squeeze past. The four-time MotoAmerica Superbike Champion, however, wasted little time in re-passing the South African and from there he was never headed, winning his 12th race of the season by 4.5 seconds with a celebratory stand-up wheelie across the finish line.
Gagne ended up second in the 20-lap race, coming out on top of a battle with Scholtz and earning himself a 10-point lead over Scholtz in the battle for second in the championship. For Gagne it was his 11th podium of the year and his seventh second-place finish. For Scholtz it was podium number nine on the season.
Toni Elias finished fourth, 19.1 seconds behind Beaubier and 5.7 seconds ahead of Cameron Petersen, the South African impressive in putting his Stock 1000-spec Suzuki GSX-R1000 in the top five of a HONOS Superbike race.
Sixth went to Elias’ teammate Bobby Fong, some two seconds behind Petersen. Kyle Wyman was seventh behind Fong and well in front of Josh Herrin. Andrew Lee ended up ninth in his HONOS Superbike debut in his first ride on the team’s GSX-R1000 and his first ride of any kind on a Suzuki. Lee came out on top of a race-long battle with Travis Wyman by just 0.013 of a second.
Superbikes Race 2
Beaubier won his 13th race of the year on Sunday at Barber Motorsports Park, and similar to the other 12 wins, the race saw with Beaubier jumping out front off the line, storming away at an unmatchable pace, and then maintaining that lead to the finish. At the line he was 5.125 seconds clear of second-placed Mathew Scholtz.
Cameron Beaubier
“I can’t even believe it. We’ve been on such a roll this season. I’m so grateful for the team that I have. My bike has been working awesome all year. It’s been on rails around this place. Obviously, my game right now is just to try to get out front early and try to take advantage of the good rubber and try to manage my gap if I have one. There towards midway I had a pretty good, I don’t know if they showed it or not, but I had a pretty good (front end) tuck. I almost crashed out of Charlotte’s Webb. The wind was kind of gusting. Some laps you’d go in there and you’d have a pretty big push, other laps you’d brake early. The wind was pretty tricky for me. I don’t know about these guys, but I was definitely getting blown around out there more than I was yesterday. After that happened, I just tried to kind of settle down. My gap started going down and Matty (Scholtz) started catching me a little bit. I just kept trucking along and brought it home. It’s been amazing. It’s just crazy. It’s crazy the year I’ve been having and just how fun and how hard the team is working. It’s so good to come in at the end of the session and you debrief with your guys and you take it seriously and all that, but then when they’re loading up the truck and leaving everyone’s just joking around. As a rider it’s so good to see those guys having a good time and enjoying their job like I am. It’s been an incredible year so far.”
Scholtz earned his 10th podium of the season and moved to just one point behind Beaubier’s teammate Jake Gagne in the battle for second in the HONOS Superbike title chase. Gagne was in the battle early but ran into clutch trouble that slowed him to an eventual fifth-place finish.
Bobby Fong rode his M4 ECSTAR Suzuki to third place, the Californian getting back on the podium after a three-race hiatus from the top three. Fong closed on Scholtz at the end of the race, eventually finishing less than a second behind the South African.
Fong’s teammate Toni Elias ended up fourth, some 10 seconds ahead of the struggling Gagne, who in turn was some 22 seconds ahead of Josh Herrin. Corey Alexander was seventh with David Anthony ending up eighth. Travis Wyman was ninth, one spot better than his brother Kyle. Kyle Wyman was running in fifth when he had an off-track excursion.
Source: MCNews.com.au