Josh Herrin kept his momentum alive at Ridge Motorsports Park in Shelton, Washington, with his second sweep of a weekend. Prior to Round 4, Herrin had never won three consecutive races, but with a dominant performance on Sunday, July 29, he left the Pacific Northwest with four.
Herrin was heavily challenged in Saturday’s race, giving up the lead for three laps in the closing stages of the event. Herrin rallied and won that race by 0.194 seconds over his closest championship rival, Cameron Beaubier.
Sunday was a different story. Herrin led flag-to-flag and crossed under the checkers more than five seconds ahead of Beaubier. With this victory, Herrin moved from second in the standings — a slim two points behind Beaubier — to eight points ahead and will have the red plate when the series heads to Laguna Seca in Monterey, California, July 11 - 13.
“It was weird yesterday,” Herrin said in a news release, referencing his Saturday victory. “I don’t know what was going on after that win. I just was feeling down in the dumps. The only thing I can think of is I wasn’t feeling great, but then today it was like the same point in the race. I saw the exact same number, plus 1.2 [seconds]. As soon as I saw that yesterday, I just lost focus and slowed down too much. I thought I had a good cushion, and I just over-slowed and Cam caught up.
“It was weird. I was obviously happy for the win, but not anything like today. Today I felt like I rode good. The team did a lot of work last night to try and think of anything we could get to just help me feel more comfortable on the brakes because Cam obviously was catching me a lot on the brakes. I’m stoked. Four wins in a row is huge. I’m going into Laguna with more momentum than I’ve ever had on a Superbike and more confidence than I’ve ever had.”
Herrin’s 20th career win in the Superbike division ties him for eighth on the all time wins list with Fred Merkel.
Beaubier was relieved by his Saturday effort since it came after he earned only 16 (of a possible 50) points the previous week at Road America. Losing an addition five seconds of pace on Sunday at The Ridge did not dull that feeling.
“Coming in, I knew this was going to be one of the tougher tracks we are going to come to this year,” Beaubier commented. “All said and done, two second places … I’m stoked with. Especially being able to even fight for the win yesterday.”
But Beaubier did not accumulate his early-season points lead by accepting defeat, however. With The Ridge serving as a reset, he turned his thoughts to the next round. And Laguna Seca is his home track.
“Honestly, after yesterday I was hoping for a little more out of myself today,” Beaubier added. “But I can say I rode as hard as I could. I didn’t have anything for Josh. I was taking a lot of risks on the front, just trying to stay with him. There came a point he was probably seven-tenths up the road, and I just stopped lunging forward on the brakes. I was like, ‘I need to bring this thing home.’ He was on another level today.”
The podium was the same on Sunday as it had been on Saturday with Jake Gagne taking the final spot on the box.
“It was good progress for me, just like my riding,” Gagne said. “Obviously, Bobby [Fong] has been showing that the bike is capable of running up there. He’s been smoking me. I feel like I kind of am getting closer to trying to remember how to ride after farting around all last year.”
Richie Escalante improved his performance by one position to narrowly miss the podium by one position and two seconds. He finished fifth in Saturday’s race.
Hayden Gillim rounded out the top five to score his best finish of 2025.
As for Fong, he struggled with mechanical issues and finished eighth. Fong jumped from eighth on the grid to fourth on Lap 1. He fell out of the top five three circuits later.
