Race One
Superbike races don’t get much better than the one that took place on Saturday in Texas, with the top three in the championship exchanging blows for all 12 laps of the 3.40-mile Circuit of The Americas.
After 12 frantic laps, the top three crossed the line with less than half a second separating race winner Josh Herrin from third-placed Bobby Fong, with Cameron Beaubier sandwiched between the two. To make things even more interesting, the top three were on different brands of motorcycles: Ducati (Herrin), BMW (Beaubier), and Yamaha (Fong).
With the 2026 MotoAmerica Superbike Championship reaching a boiling point with just four races left in the championship, including tomorrow’s race two at COTA, only 18 points separate the top three in the chase for the crown.
Of the three, Herrin needed the win the most as he came into the COTA round trailing Fong by 27 points. That deficit is now down to 18. With his second-place finish today, Beaubier also gained on Fong. The five-time MotoAmerica Superbike Champion is now just 13 points behind.
Warhorse HSBK Racing Ducati’s Herrin did most of the leading. Tytlers Cycle Racing’s Beaubier had a few shots at leading, but couldn’t make it stick, and Attack Performance Progressive Yamaha Racing’s Fong never led, but was always in earshot of whoever was leading.
It came down to the final couple of corners with Fong trying a desperation pass that didn’t work on Beaubier, who also made a last-ditch effort that saw him run off track, but he still had enough of a gap to beat Fong for second – by .031 of a second.
Late in the race, it was Vision Wheel M4 ECSTAR Suzuki’s Richie Escalante who was making the most noise as he was fourth and making inroads to the top three at a clip of half a second a lap. On the final lap, however, his bike had a technical issue, and he was forced to retire from the race.
That left Real Steel Honda’s Hayden Gillim in fourth place, some four seconds ahead of Vision Wheel M4 ECSTAR Suzuki’s Sean Dylan Kelly.
Gillim’s teammate JD Beach ended up sixth, which also gave him the victory and the Superbike Cup Championship – for those racing Stock 1000-spec motorcycles in the Superbike class.
FLOLAW’s Benjamin Smith was seventh with Jones Honda’s Ashton Yates eighth. Aftercare Scheibe Racing’s Danilo Lewis was ninth with Fong’s teammate Jake Gagne remounting and rounding out the top 10. Gagne was battling in the lead group when he crashed on the fifth lap.
Superbike Unlimited Racing’s Max Stauffer was 11th, with the Australian making his MotoAmerica debut this weekend at COTA.
Superbike Race 1
Quotes
Bobby Fong – Third Place
“I hate to do stuff like that, really,” Fong said of his desperation attempt at passing Beaubier. “He’s a good buddy of mine. I know he’s going to return the favor soon. It does suck, but I had to go for it. I knew Richie (Escalante) was coming behind me. That’s the thing. I didn’t know how close he was. I didn’t know he crashed. I could see on my pit board that he was literally catching us half a second a lap. So, I’m like, ‘I need to go.’ But I know once I get in a battle with them it’s going to slow the overall pace up, and then it will be four dudes fighting for the win. So, I didn’t really know what to do. But I knew I had to do something at the last two turns because I knew Richie was going to go for the podium for sure. But these two dudes rode great. I’m happy to be close to them at this track for sure. It was a long, hot one. I know they’re injured. I’m looking forward to New Jersey, for sure.”
Cameron Beaubier – Second Place
“Honestly, I was riding behind (Josh) Herrin and I felt like I had a little pace, but then when I did get up front I was starting to push the front around and slide quite a bit. I think the track was just hot and greasy. Honestly, bummed with the second (place). We need to make some points up. At least we made a couple back on Bob (Fong). Josh (Herrin) rode a great race. I tried to do something kind of last minute in the last corner and he scraped me up, which was a good move. I’m glad we’ve got tomorrow to try again. Getting to the wrist thing, I’ve had a pretty bad week. Crashed my bicycle, like I told you, on Saturday last week. Was trying to keep it quiet, but you can’t keep much quiet around the pits. I’m just really happy with my team. Big thanks to them for getting me comfortable on the bike. We had to change the seating position up and the bars a little bit just to get me through the weekend. Honestly, I’m happy that I’m even racing because Tuesday was a different story. I was kind of scratching my head if I’d be able to ride or not. Thanks to Dr. Price for helping me out this weekend also. Also Dr. Brian. I said some stuff to him, and he got in touch with Dr. Price and told me what I needed to do for the weekend, so thanks to those guys. On to tomorrow.”
Josh Herrin – Winner
“I told my guys, best-case scenario, obviously is Cam (Beaubier) getting second and Bobby (Fong) getting third because it allows me to gain some points on Bobby. I was in a position this year that was different than a lot of times. I guess I was in it last year too, but I let it get to me a little bit too much this year. Just sometimes where I could have taken some risk to try to get a win, I just settled instead. Not to say I would have got the win, but I would have tried a little bit harder. But it was just kind of like, ‘We’re safe.’ I think it just got to my head, which is weird because it hasn’t in the past. I don’t know. I’m just using that. I’m hoping that’s what it was, because going into this weekend, I just wanted to think about trying to get wins again and not care about the championship and kind of play into that underdog role and just try to attack. Just try to have fun in practice, qualifying, race. Just have fun and go out there, screw around. It seemed to work. Today we made a big gamble, and we went with the (Dunlop) R7, which obviously we won but it was super risky. In that race, obviously, you know that the pace was not the best. I was just trying to hold them off as much as I could. I honestly thought they were going to come by and just fly by. When Cam came by, I just threw the kitchen sink at him to try to get it and was able to get that lap time. I think tomorrow the R5 will help us out a little bit and especially with how greasy it is. So, it was a crazy last couple weeks. I was pretty down in the dumps, like I talked to you about. I knew that I threw it away, because all I needed to do was just go get some points on the weekends where I wasn’t feeling like I could get a win, and instead I just went out and pushed harder than maybe I should have and just made some mistakes. Just trying to claw my way back as much as I can and, hopefully, we can be in it at the end.”
Race Two
Tytlers Cycle Racing’s Cameron Beaubier came into the Circuit of The Americas round of the 2025 MotoAmerica Superbike Championship trailing Bobby Fong by 17 points. After two thrilling races in Texas, Beaubier leaves just eight points adrift of Fong.
Bring on New Jersey Motorsports Park.
All three of the championship contenders had good weekends at COTA. While Beaubier was second in race one and won race two, Attack Performance Progressive Yamaha Racing’s Fong was third in race one and second in race two. Warhorse HSBK Racing Ducati’s Josh Herrin won race one and was third in race two.
So, here’s how it shakes down as the series heads to the finale at New Jersey Motorsports Park in two weeks: Fong leads the way with 314 points, eight more than Beaubier and 22 more than Herrin.
To make an already climactic ending even more so, the finale at NJMP is a tripleheader, which means there are 75 points on the table. Any of the three can leave the Jersey Shore with the championship.
Beaubier won Sunday’s race at COTA by 1.1 seconds over Fong with Herrin third, 14.2 seconds behind. Beaubier made his statement early in Sunday’s race, dropping the hammer, dicing a bit with Fong on the opening lap, and then getting a gap back to the championship points leader.
It didn’t take long for Herrin to figure out that he didn’t have the pace, and he was never a factor in this one. Instead, he ended up fighting off Vision Wheel M4 ECSTAR Suzuki’s Sean Dylan Kelly and Fong’s teammate Jake Gagne.
He did so, ending up third by less than a second over Kelly with Gagne another half a second behind.
At the front, Beaubier was nearly flawless. Key word: Nearly.
On the seventh lap, Beaubier came as close to crashing a motorcycle as you can without going down. Fong took advantage, but Beaubier was quickly back on pace, caught the Yamaha man, and repassed him. From there, it was just a matter of keeping Fong behind him, which he did. By 1.1 seconds.
The win was the fifth of the year for Beaubier and the 70th of his Superbike career. It also sets him up nicely for the finale in New Jersey with his goal of becoming a six-time MotoAmerica Superbike Champion.
Fong has other plans, as he considers his three-two finishes at COTA a win. He looks forward to NJMP as he’s always gone well there. Herrin, meanwhile, knows he’s in a bit of a pickle, but he’s in a better position than he was pre-COTA.
Kelly ended up fourth, besting Gagne by less than a second.
Real Steel Honda’s JD Beach inherited sixth place when his teammate Hayden Gillim crashed late in the race. Fortunately, Gillim was able to remount and finish seventh.
FLO4LAW’s Benjamin Smith, Jones Honda’s Ashton Yates, and Aftercare Scheibe Racing’s Danilo Lewis rounded out the top 10.
Notable of the non-finishers – and winner of the cruelest weekend contest -was Vision Wheel M4 ECSTAR Suzuki’s Richie Escalante. In Saturday’s race, Escalante’s motorcycle failed him on the last lap while he was running fourth. On Sunday, the bike failed him again on the first lap.
Superbike Race 2
Quotes
Josh Herrin – Third Place
“I woke up this morning in a lot more pain. I think I just had to grit it yesterday, and I think the bone doesn’t like it. Today was definitely harder on me. I wouldn’t say that’s why we weren’t able to be fighting with those guys. Cam (Beaubier) just left and was really fast, and I wasn’t. I tried to hang on. Really that’s it. The tire pressure was set a little bit lower than what we had in practice and qualifying just because it was so hot, to allow them to come up to temperature to be where we had them in practice. Honestly, I didn’t like the way the bike was feeling, doing that. I felt like I was riding a different bike than I was yesterday. But he (Beaubier) was riding fast. It sucks because all the hard work we did yesterday, we just gave it back basically today. Now we have a lot of work to do in Jersey. I’m super grateful that I was able to win a race yesterday. For sure, if you asked me at the start of yesterday, I didn’t think I would have been capable of it. At least kept us at the same spot, or maybe a little bit better than what we came in, so that way when we go to Jersey for the last three races, we at least are still there. We’re not just completely out of it. Congrats to Cam on the win. He deserved that one. He took off right from the beginning. I was just panicking to try to keep up. So, congrats to him. Hopefully get some rain in Jersey to help us out.”
Bobby Fong – Second Place
“We knew coming in here it might be a struggle. I am definitely thankful to get on the podium here because there’s a lot of fast guys. It was super greasy out there. It’s really easy to have moments out there. The track is kind of weird. Cameron (Beaubier) almost went down. It kind of looked like he was doing the same thing. I took the lead for a second, and I had a few moments. I’m like, ‘we have a good gap behind me.’ I tried to back it off and then went back by and like, ‘damn it, now we got to push again.’ I was trying to go a little bit slower because I was taking too many risks. But he rode a good pace. He didn’t make any mistakes, honestly. Kudos to him. It’s hard to do it in this heat. But we’re definitely looking forward to Jersey. Three races there. I think it should be fun.”
Cameron Beaubier – Winner
“Everything flashed in front of my eyes (when he almost crashed). All the hard work we’ve been putting in. The front end came back, thankfully. I was struggling pretty bad with the front end there in some of the long right-handers. My gap just started closing, a tenth by a tenth. Bob (Fong) was closing in on me. That was a really, really hard race. I haven’t had that hard of a race in a long, long time. I was pushing as hard as I could the entire race. Honestly, I felt awesome at the beginning of the race. My bike was just hooked up. I saw I did a couple 2:07’s and straight into the low 2:08s. Felt awesome. But it made me a little nervous for the rest of the race because I was doing three laps all weekend, and that’s pretty much all I had. I had a hard pace, had a pushing pace, with what’s going on with my wrist. Just definitely had to grind that one out. That one was for my team. The Tytlers guys have been working so hard. Even after my dumb ass made a crash on the bicycle earlier this week, they still stuck behind me and got me comfortable on the bike and just kept motivating me all weekend, like ‘you can do this.”’ So, thanks to them. I’m stoked that we’re back in it. Bob pushed me so hard the whole race. So, hats off to him, because the pace was really hot. We’ll see what happens at New Jersey, but at least we’re somewhat back in it.”
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