2021 MotoAmerica Superbike Championship
Round 4 – The Ridge
Images by Brian J. Nelson
Honos Superbike Race 1
Fresh N’ Lean Attack Performance Yamaha’s Jake Gagne’s plan doesn’t seem to change from race to race, and it’s a strategy that is paying dividends. Qualify on pole position, get the jump on everyone off the start and put the race out of reach in the first handful of laps.
Such was the case again on a scorching hot Saturday at Ridge Motorsports Park, the Californian winning his sixth-straight MotoAmerica HONOS Superbike race after leading from start to finish.
Gagne, who broke the track record during Q2 on Saturday morning, was unstoppable again. He led every lap and if it wasn’t for the oppressive heat, it could have been classified as a walk in the park.
Second place went to Gagne’s teammate Josh Herrin, the 2013 AMA Superbike Champion finding something in his setup that made him faster and more comfortable than in previous races. The second-place finish was Herrin’s best thus far in 2021 and he was 4.49 seconds behind Gagne after 17 laps.
Herrin’s first few laps were a bit daunting, and he came very close to crashing after losing the front at one point.
Herrin had his hands full for the majority of the race with M4 ECSTAR Suzuki’s Cameron Petersen with the South African hounding Herrin until giving up the chase after running wide in the turn one chicane. He ended up some four seconds behind in third place.
Warhorse HSBK Racing Ducati New York’s Loris Baz ended up fourth and 14 seconds behind Gagne after qualifying second and looking like he might have a challenge for Gagne in the race.
Westby Racing’s Mathew Scholtz crossed the finish line some five seconds behind Baz in fifth place, well clear of HONOS HVMC Racing’s Corey Alexander. Alexander put in a solid ride to finish a career-best sixth in the HONOS Superbike class while winning the Superbike Cup for racers riding Stock 1000-spec motorcycles.
FLY Racing ADR Motorsports’ David Anthony finished seventh, which matched his best of the season. Then came M4 ECSTAR Suzuki’s Bobby Fong, who managed to finish eighth despite a mechanical problem. Anthony’s FLY Racing ADR Motorsports’ teammate Jayson Uribe and Altus Motorsports’ Jake Lewis rounded out the top 10.
Honos Superbike Race 2
Gagne followed this up by winning his seventh straight HONOS Superbike race on a flaming hot Sunday in the Pacific Northwest as record, triple-digit temperatures scorched the area, making the racing a survival of the fittest.
At least on track, Gagne (“the gnarlier the better”) was definitely the fittest and he led into turn one only to find his teammate Herrin too close for comfort as the two very nearly came together.
Once the turn-one melee sorted itself out, it was clear sailing for Gagne as he established his normal lead and then maintained it to the finish.
Jake Gagne
“I didn’t get the best jump. I didn’t get a jump like I did yesterday. I saw his (Josh Herrin’s) wheel coming up around the outside of me. He threw it in one, and I threw it in there, too. It was good to see a wheel and do some racing, because it was kind of a lonely one yesterday. I knew these boys would step it up today. We made a couple changes today. Made the bike a little bit easier to ride. With how hot it is, you can’t just go down there and try to throw down the first couple laps. You just got to ride and just put the bike in a place where it’s comfortable and not use up these tyres too much. Once on my pit board I see just a (plus) .5 or something, I know probably Josh (Herrin) can’t stick it in from a half a second away, so that just allows me to kind of run my lines, relax. So, it was nice. I enjoyed the heat out there. It was hot. It was probably one of the hottest races I ever remember, but I feel really good. The gnarlier the better. I like it. Again, hats off to the Fresh N’ Lean Attack Yamaha. The boys work hard and no matter how much we win by or if we barely win, we’re going to keep working harder to try to do what we know we can do, so hats off to those guys and all the fans. It was good to have fans back here in Washington after being alone here last year, especially in this heat. They stuck it out in record-breaking heat up here. Roll on to Laguna. I love that track. Let’s do it.”
Herrin gave it his all and ended up second for the second straight day, giving a lot of the credit for his newfound speed to new riding coach Josh Hayes.
Josh Herrin
“It’s been such a great weekend! This season’s been really tough, but we’ve been putting in a lot of work, and we finally got our mojo back, and I’m riding like myself again. I have to give a huge thanks to the entire team for all of their hard work and also to Josh Hayes for helping turn my year around with the amazing coaching! I’m so appreciative of everybody on the team. They’ve stuck behind me when I was bummed out. We’ve just got to get to the level that Jake’s at right now. He’s just got that little bit at the beginning of the race, and today, I struggled in the middle of the race with the heat. I need to figure out how to get that one-lap pace back that I used to have at the beginning of the race, and I’ll be right there. I’m really looking forward to Laguna!”
Third place went to Warhorse HSBK Racing Ducati New York’s Loris Baz, the Frenchman struggling to ride a difficult Ducati Panigale V4 R in the heat around the 2.47-mile racetrack. It was Baz’s third podium finish of the season.
Westby Racing’s Mathew Scholtz improved to fourth from his fifth-place finish on Saturday, the South African just two seconds clear of Scheibe Racing BMW’s Hector Barbera. It was the Spaniard’s best finish thus far in his debut season of racing in the MotoAmerica Series.
Yesterday’s third-place finisher Cameron Petersen was fighting with Baz for third again when he was slowed by a technical issue that pushed him down the order to sixth. He ended up some 20 seconds ahead of his M4 ECSTAR Suzuki teammate Bobby Fong.
FLY Racing ADR Motorsports’ owner/racer David Anthony got the better of HONOS HVMC Racing’s Corey Alexander and Anthony’s teammate Jayson Uribe to finish eighth. Alexander and Uribe rounded out the top 10 finishers with Alexander winning the Superbike Cup for racers armed with Stock 1000-spec motorcycles.
HONOS Superbike Results
Source: MCNews.com.au