Press Release | September 25, 2024
The 2024 MotoAmerica Steel Commander Superbike series finale takes place at New Jersey Motorsports Park on September 27-29.
Josh Herrin (2) will likely wrap up the 2024 MotoAmerica Steel Commander Superbike Championship at New Jersey Motorsports Park, September 27-29, but the likes of Sean Dylan Kelly (40) and Cameron Beaubier (6) will make him earn it. Photo by Brian J. Nelson
The following is a race preview from MotoAmerica…
Irvine, CA (September 24, 2024) – If all goes according to plan for the Warhorse HSBK Racing Ducati team in the MotoAmerica series finale at New Jersey Motorsports Park, September 27-29, Josh Herrin will win his second AMA Superbike Championship – 11 years after winning his first – and Ducati will win its third AMA Superbike title as a manufacturer – 30 years after its last.
And all that will add up to an historic and memorable season for those wearing red.
But before we get too far ahead of ourselves, there are still two races remaining in the Steel Commander Superbike Championship chase and it’s not over until it is.
Herrin heads to the Garden State with a whopping 46-point lead in the Steel Commander Superbike Championship. If he finishes race one at NJMP with a lead of 25 points or more, the title will be his. If that doesn’t happen in race one, he has it to do all over again in race two. Unless he somehow trips over himself, the title will be Herrin’s and he will join MotoAmerica President Wayne Rainey, four-time World Champion Eddie Lawson and the late Wes Cooley as two-time winners of the title. Twenty-two different riders have won AMA Superbike Championships in the 48 years of the series.
One thing that’s certain, Herrin won’t be tiptoeing around in eighth or ninth place to win this championship. He’ll fight at the front, much like he did two weeks earlier at Circuit of The Americas, and that’s going to make it entertaining for those of us who get to sit back and watch.
Herrin got to the comfortable position he’s in by winning five races and finishing on the podium in seven races that he didn’t win. He was off the podium a total of six times in 18 races. He also took full advantage of the races his title rival Cameron Beaubier was forced to miss due to injury, winning race two at Road Atlanta and finishing second twice at Brainerd International Raceway in Beaubier’s absence. He also didn’t allow himself to give up early in the season when he had just one podium finish in the first three rounds (six races) with Beaubier winning three of those. Herrin plugged away and it all came together with four wins in the final eight races with the other four resulting in podium finishes.
The bottom line: Herrin had a really good season and even his rivals will tell you that he deserves the championship.
Beaubier, meanwhile, can only think back with a big “what-if.” Lots of the top men crashed out of Superbike race one at Road America in the pouring rain, but only Beaubier suffered injury. His broken heel required surgery with a screw going up through the bottom of his foot to hold things in place. He missed three races, came back a bit too early at Ridge Motorsports Park, but then finished with a flurry of three wins, three seconds and a third on his Tytlers Cycle Racing BMW M 1000 RR. But it likely won’t be enough.
If it’s any consolation (and it’s not), Beaubier is on tap to finish second in the championship as he leads Wrench Motorcycles’ Bobby Fong by 41 points heading to NJMP.
Fong’s early and mid-season were strong, highlighted by his two victories at Brainerd International Raceway, but things have gone sour of late, and Fong hasn’t been on the podium since race two at Ridge Motorsports Park at the end of June. Case in point: Fong scored 21 points in the three races at COTA while Beaubier earned 70 points to take over the runner-up spot in the points chase.
Fong will need two strong races at NJMP to hold off EasyHealthPlans.com/TopPro Racing’s Sean Dylan Kelly for third in the championship with Kelly coming off his career-best weekend of racing with his first-ever MotoAmerica Superbike win coming in race two at COTA. The Floridian is only five points behind Fong.
Surprisingly, you have to go back to fifth and sixth before you find any Attack Performance/Progressive/Yamaha Racing YZF-R1s with Cameron Petersen and Jake Gagne in those spots heading into the finale. Even though there has been a myriad of struggles of late, this is still Petersen’s best season of Superbike racing as he does have a career high of three wins on the year.
Three-time MotoAmerica Superbike Champion Jake Gagne has had a season of disappointments with arm-pump issues basically ruining his year. He somehow soldiered on through most of the season before finally calling it quits the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course round. At COTA, Xavi Forés filled in for Gagne, and the Spaniard will do the same at NJMP.
Gagne is in a tie for sixth with Warhorse HSBK Racing Ducati’s Loris Baz so the Frenchman will surely move up with a chance to also catch Petersen. Baz has two podiums on the season and is still chasing a first-career MotoAmerica Superbike victory.
Beaubier’s teammate JD Beach will likely finish where he is now – eighth in the championship – in his first season back in MotoAmerica and his first season on the team and its BMW M1000 RR. Beach is coming off a strong weekend at COTA with two fourth-place finishes and a fifth.
Vision Wheel M4 ECSTAR Suzuki’s Brandon Paasch will also likely wrap up his season in ninth in the championship, 29 points ahead of what promises to be a real battle in the season finale for 10th and the MotoAmerica Superbike Cup title which pays the winner $25,000.
Jones Honda’s Ashton Yates and Team Brazil’s Danilo Lewis are just four points apart in the fight for 10th in the Superbike standings, but Lewis holds a 10-point lead over Yates in the battle for the money and the Superbike Cup title. Yates has put on a charge with five Superbike Cup wins in a row heading into NJMP.
Pre-NJMP Notes…
Unless he somehow trips over himself, Josh Herrin will join MotoAmerica President Wayne Rainey, four-time World Champion Eddie Lawson and the late Wes Cooley as two-time winners of the title. Twenty-two different riders have won AMA Superbike Championships in the 48 years of the series.
The man who owns the most AMA Superbike titles is Mat Mladin with seven and the Australian will be on hand at New Jersey Motorsports Park as MotoAmerica’s Grand Marshal. Coincidentally, Mladin had his last race 15 years ago… at NJMP.
The active MotoAmerica rider with the most AMA Superbike titles is Cameron Beaubier with five championships. With his two wins at COTA two weeks ago, Beaubier now has 65 career AMA Superbike wins, which puts him second and 17 victories behind Mladin’s leading 82 wins.
Jake Gagne was already crowned as the 2023 MotoAmerica Superbike Champion when the series rolled into NJMP for the finale a season ago. Gagne went out and won the first race on Saturday in the rain for his 40th career AMA Superbike victory. and rode to a cautious fourth in the wet race two. Gagne beat JD Beach and Corey Alexander in race one with Beach winning race two over PJ Jacobsen and Alexander.
PJ Jacobsen earned pole position for the two Steel Commander Superbike races last year with his lap of 1:20.647. Jake Gagne and Mathew Scholtz rounded out the front row. The lap record is a 1:19.806, which is held by Cameron Beaubier and dates back to 2020.
With NJMP getting a complete repave in the off-season, lap records will likely be scorched this coming weekend.
With his win at COTA, Sean Dylan Kelly became the third rider in the MotoAmerica era to win a Superbike race in his rookie season, joining Toni Elias (2016) and Danilo Petrucci (2022). Five-time MotoAmerica Superbike Champion Cameron Beaubier also won in his rookie season of AMA Superbike racing in 2014, but that was pre-MotoAmerica.
Who’s Ready For An All-Out War In Battle For Mission King Of The Baggers Supremacy?
There’s nothing better than a championship fight going to the final round. In boxing and motorcycle racing. And that’s exactly what we have in the Mission King Of The Baggers series as rival heavyweights racing for rival manufacturers will go to the start line in race one at New Jersey Motorsports Park on Saturday separated by just two points. Can you say winner-take-all? Times two.
Will it be Kyle Wyman (33) or Troy Herfoss (17) taking the 2024 Mission King Of The Baggers title in the season finale at New Jersey Motorsports Park, September 27-29? Photo by Brian J. Nelson.
With the championship likely not to be clinched after the first of two races on Saturday at NJMP, we’re almost guaranteed that this brawl will go the distance – the full nine rounds and 18 races.
Harley-Davidson Factory Racing’s Kyle Wyman is atop the standings by those precious two points heading to what is his home track in Millville. Wyman has logged six wins on the year and 12 total podiums to S&S/Indian Motorcycle’s Troy Herfoss and his six wins and 13 total podiums.
The difference between the two is in the non-podium finishes. Wyman’s worst result is an eighth-place finish in race two at Brainerd International Raceway. Herfoss, meanwhile, crashed and remounted to finish 11th in race one at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca.
Even though Wyman has a zillion laps around NJMP to Herfoss’ zero laps, the Australian has proven to be a quick study as his rookie season has been full of racetracks he’s never seen before. The fact that the notoriously bumpy NJMP has been resurfaced could help equalize things as local knowledge of the bumps is usually more important than knowledge of the grip. And the bumps are reportedly gone.
Wyman and Herfoss have owned the series as evidenced by their 100-point lead over defending series champion Hayden Gillim and his RevZilla/Motul/Vance & Hines Harley-Davidson. Gillim has three race wins on his scorecard, but “only” five total podiums. The Kentuckian would like nothing better than to insert himself into the battle and come away with a win or two in the finale.
Tyler O’Hara is 15 points behind Gillim and could prove to be a factor in helping his teammate Herfoss win the title, though the same could be said for Wyman’s teammate James Rispoli, who sits sixth and just four points behind Gillim’s teammate Rocco Landers, who rides the momentum of winning his first-career Mission King Of The Baggers race at COTA two weeks ago.
In winning race one at COTA, Landers became the fourth different winner in the class, joining Wyman (six wins), Herfoss (six wins), and Gillim (3 wins). The win was 19-year-old Landers’ 53rd MotoAmerica victory and he’s now won races in four different classes – Mission King Of The Baggers, Supersport, BellissiMoto Twins Cup, and Junior Cup.
Supersport – Scholtz On The Verge
Strack Racing’s Mathew Scholtz hasn’t won the number-one plate in the Supersport Championship yet, but he’s got a firm grasp on it as he heads to NJMP with a 39-point advantage over Rahal Ducati Moto’s PJ Jacobsen, who will need to keep that total under 25 points in race one or his shot at the title will be gone before the lights go out in race two.
Scholtz has gotten this far via eight wins and 14 total podiums in 16 races. Jacobsen is in the fight because of his six wins and 12 total podiums. The difference is in the crashes. Scholtz crashed out of race one at Circuit of The Americas two weeks ago and that was his only blunder. Jacobsen has crashed out of two races, the first he got an assist from Scholtz, the second was in race two at COTA with no one to blame but himself.
So here we are. The pair that controlled the championship from day one goes into the final round separated by 39 points. One is in a comfortable position, the other needs a miracle.
The battle for third in the title chase is a close one with Altus Motorsports’ Jake Lewis leading N2 Racing/BobbleHeadMoto’s Blake Davis by 12 points with Vision Wheel M4 ECSTAR Suzuki’s Tyler Scott a further eight points adrift.
Lewis and Scott each have a victory this season with Davis yet to win a Supersport race. Lewis got to where he is with consistency that has seen him score points in every single round. No one else in the top 10 can make that claim.
The second season of the revised Supersport “Next Generation” rules continues to show parity as four different manufacturers are in the top 10 in the championship and three of those – Yamaha, Ducati and Suzuki – have won races.
Stock 1000 – Gillim Vs. Uribe
There hasn’t been a Stock 1000 race since July 12 at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca. In the meantime, Real Steel Motorsports’ Hayden Gillim has been racing to try and defend his Mission King Of The Baggers Championship while racing his Honda CBR1000RR-R SP in select Superbike races. Heck, he’s even suffered an injured hand that required surgery in the time since he last did battle in Stock 1000.
Gillim will go up against OrangeCat Racing’s Jayson Uribe in the series finale with the two just seven points apart. Unless Uribe has been club racing since July, he hasn’t even laid eyes on his BMW M 1000 RR in almost four months.
Those two have won all the races bar one with Jones Honda’s Ashton Yates winning race two at Laguna Seca. Hayden leads the way with five wins to Uribe’s two victories. Gillim, however, crashed out of race two at Brainerd International Raceway and that’s how Uribe, who has scored points in every race, is this close.
Yates is third, 39 points behind Gillim and eight points clear of FLO4LAW Racing’s Benjamin Smith with BPR Racing’s Bryce Prince just six points adrift of Smith.
Junior Cup – The Last Dance
Sunday’s race two of the Junior Cup class will mark the end of the series as the MotoAmerica Talent Cup takes over in 2025.
That means that Matthew Chapin will be the last Junior Cup Champion as the BARTCON Racing-backed rider from Maryland wrapped up the title at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course in August.
Chapin will start the series finale as the favorite, based on his six wins in 10 starts and an unbeatable 62-point lead over his nearest competition, New York Safety Track Racing’s Yandel Medina.
Speed Demon Racing’s Logan Gunnison sits third in the title chase headed to NJMP, 19 points behind Medina and 19 ahead of Fernandez Racing’s Jayden Fernandez. The only real championship battle is the one for fourth with Fernandez, BARTCON Racing’s Eli Block, Wolfe Racing’s Ryan Wolfe, BPM’s Isaac Woodworth, Karns Performance Racing’s Levin Badie and Bad Boys Racing’s Ella Dreher all separated by just 14 points.
Pre-NJMP Support Class Notes…
Tyler Scott and Josh Hayes split wins in the Supersport class at New Jersey Motorsports Park in last year’s season finale. Scott topped Anthony Mazziotto and Kayla Yaakov in race one with Hayes beating Mazziotto and Jake Lewis in race two.
Fortunately for Xavi Forés, the Spaniard had already wrapped up the Supersport Championship by the time the series got to NJMP. In the two races, Forés scored just seven points. Left without a ride for 2024, Forés has been filling in for injured riders. This weekend in New Jersey, he will be riding the injured Jake Gagne’s Attack Performance/Progressive/Yamaha Racing YZF-R1 in the Steel Commander Superbike races.
Last year’s Mission King Of The Baggers finale at NJMP was a drama-filled couple of races with Hayden Gillim coming out of it all with the series championship via his first- and second-place finishes. Gillim won race one over James Rispoli and Travis Wyman with Kyle Wyman taking victory in race two over Gillim and Max Flinders. Kyle Wyman lost any hope of the title when he crashed his Harley-Davidson on the warm-up lap prior to the start of Saturday’s race one.
Avery Dreher was another who was fortunate to not need the points from the series finale to earn him the Junior Cup Championship. Dreher had a miserable weekend and scored just a single point, but he’d already wrapped up the title. Eli Block won both races, besting Jayden Fernandez and Logan Monk in race one before topping Levin Badie and Yandel Medina in race two.
For more information on MotoAmerica, visit www.MotoAmerica.com
