Josh Herrin narrowly edged Cameron Beaubier and Bobby Fong in the first race of a doubleheader at The Circuit of the Americas in Austin, Texas, and then the three title contenders mixed up the podium in Race 2 with Beaubier winning, Fong second, and Herrin third on Sunday.
Finishing ahead of Fong in both races, Beaubier narrowed the gap to eight points with three races remaining in the season finale triple header at New Jersey Motorsports Park in two weeks. Herrin is 22 points behind in third.
The trio never lost contact in the first race. In the early stage, they separated from Sean Dylan Kelly and the field. It took nearly half of the race for Richie Escalante, a Mexican National who thinks of this as his home track, to pass his teammate, Kelly, and begin to take half a second off the leader’s advantage. His presence was felt, and it pressured the leaders into swapping the top three spots on practically every corner in the closing laps.
“I hate to do stuff like that, really,” Fong said of his intense charge on 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 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.”
Fong pressured Beaubier into multiple passes on Herrin on the final lap, only to have Herrin crossover and return the favor. The last pair of lead changes came in the final turn with the three riders crossing under the checkers within half a second.
“I told my guys, best-case scenario, obviously, is Cam getting second and Bobby 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.”
Escalante’s last-lap crash handed fourth to Hayden Gillim and fifth to Kelly.
Superbike Race 1, Top 10
1. Josh Herrin (Ducati)
2. Cameron Beaubier (BMW)
3. Bobby Fong (Yamaha)
4. Hayden Gillim (Honda)
5. Sean Dylan Kelly (Suzuki)
6. JD Beach (Honda)
7. Benjamin Smith (Yamaha)
8. Ashton Yates (Honda)
9. Danilo Lewis (BMW)’
10. Jake Gagne (Yamaha)
Race 2
The roles were reversed in Race 2, and Herrin was forced to give back four of the nine points he gained on Fong on Saturday.
Beaubier was the overall winner of the round, finishing ahead of his principal rival for the championship in both races and slicing nine points off Fong’s advantage. With three races on tap in New Jersey, the game of leapfrog is likely to continue.
The battle for the lead in Race 2 was as intense between the top two riders, with Beaubier winning by 1.1 seconds. Herrin faded to 14.2 seconds behind, but earned third-place points nonetheless,
Beaubier almost threw the race away on Lap 7. His near-crash allowed Fong to pounce and grab the lead, but applying the lesson he learned the previous day in his effort to bet Herrin, Beaubier re-passed Fong for the lead and kept him at bay.
“Everything flashed in front of my eyes (when I almost crashed),” Beaubier said. “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 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.”
The win was the fifth of the year for Beaubier and the 70th of his Superbike career.
Superbike Race 2, Top 10
1. Cameron Beaubier (BMW)
2. Bobby Fong (Yamaha)
3. Josh Herrin (Ducati)
4. Sean Dylan Kelly (Suzuki)
5. Jake Gagne (Yamaha)
6. JD Beach (Honda)
7. Hayden Gillim (Honda)
8. Benjamin Smith (Yamaha)
9. Ashton Yates (Honda)
10. Danilo Lewis (BMW)
