The Superbike championship MotoAmerica started his season at Road Atlanta, in Georgia (USA), first round of the 9 events of his calendar. After an opening day allowing you to observe a team effort from the Warhorse HSBK Racing Ducati team to place its two pilots Josh Herrin et Loris Baz on the front row after qualifying 1, things unfortunately took a different turn on Saturday…
Bobby Fong first won pole position during the morning session of qualifying 2 aboard his Yamaha YZF-R1 from the Key Motorcycles team, ahead of Sean Dylan Kelly on the TopPro Racing BMW M 1000 RR, the 2021 MotoAmerica Supersport champion and ex-Moto2 rider definitely quickly regaining his bearings on the American track.
It was also the man from Florida who took the holeshot at the start of the 19 laps, inaugurating an extremely competitive race as shown by the gap of 3 tenths between the first three, and less than 6 seconds between the first eight. . We will therefore spare you the enumeration of the countless battles, to name the winner, the five-time champion Cameron Beaubier riding his Tytler Cycle Racing BMW in front of the three-time reigning champion Jake Gagne (Attack Performance Yamaha), to switch to what happened after the finish line.
A few seconds after crossing the checkered flag, Richie Escalante hit the back of Loris Baz, and both pilots fell heavily.
Richie Escalante got up before being taken to hospital, but the images only showed the destroyed motorcycles and the state of health of Loris Baz was not yet known until the pilot himself communicated on social networks and reassured us somewhat, despite the condition of his right foot.
Cameron Beaubier, who did not finish the season last year, explains his winning return:
“I would be lying if I said that after Pittsburgh, I was no longer in love with motorcycles at all. Staying at home hurt me, but we all share this passion. Motorcycles are in our blood. A few months pass and we start to get hungry. The team has posted the date of the first test and then you have a reason to work. Then I wanted to run. We did some good tests. I felt very good during the test. I made good progress with the bike, with the guys from Tytlers. I take my hat off to them. They worked hard throughout the off-season to raise our level of play. Yesterday didn't necessarily start well, since we threw the bike to the ground in the second practice. But today was great. We didn't make things easy, Jake (Gagne) either, by starting on the second row of the starting grid, given the density of the peloton at the moment. Like Jake said, it's really great to race with all these guys. I was only two or three tenths behind, and I was back to fifth place in qualifying. This hasn't often been the case in recent years in MotoAmerica Superbike. So that's a good thing. I'm happy to be back and feeling healthy. Jake had good pace up front. I think we were all in management mode. The track was quite greasy. We were sliding all over the place. I think it would have been risky to go any faster. I was just trying to bide my time. Bobby (Fong) was making things really difficult because he was late on the brakes. I kept catching him on the back straight and had to roll a bit. I caught him in the worst place, in the corner, and then he braked very hard in the 10th. So I was kind of stuck there. I bided my time until the last laps. I was able to make some good overtakes. Jake and I went back and forth on the last lap and I was able to bring home the win. It's a good feeling. »
Photo by Brian J. Nelson
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