CHAMPIONSHIP
VOL. 55 ISSUE 34 AUGUST 28, 2018 P71
BY RENNIE SCAYSBROOK
PHOTOGRAPHY BY BRIAN J NELSON
T
he eighth round of the 2018 MotoAmeri-
ca Superbike Championship at the Pitts-
burgh International Race Complex will
be one to remember for Josh Herrin (Attack
Performance/Herrin Compound Yamaha),
who, in race one at Pittsburgh, took his first
MotoAmerica Superbike win since his champi-
onship season of 2013.
In tricky wet/dry conditions, Herrin was the
bravest of all on lap one, passing Yoshimura
Suzuki Factory Racing's Toni Elias into turn
one and dropping the hammer to lead every-
one by a country mile going into lap two.
From there, Herrin continued to push out
the laps to take an eventual 2.3-second vic-
tory over Monster Energy/Yamalube/Yamaha
Factory Racing's Garret Gerloff, who in turn
was just over a second clear of Yamalube/
Westby Racing's Mathew Scholtz for a Yama-
ha clean sweep of the podium.
"It was pretty sketchy conditions," Herrin
said. "On the warm-up lap, I just made sure I
dragged my foot over on the track and made
sure where the spots were wet so I knew
on the first lap I could go at the exact spot I
needed to, and I think it really worked out. I'm
pumped because I realized on the podium
it's the first time I've won a Superbike race in
five years. That's a huge deal for me. Richard
[Stanboli, the team owner] has been racing for
I don't know how long and never got a Super-
bike win. So, it feels really good to get that for
him."
The one constant missing in the all-Yamaha
podium was championship leader and pole-
sitter Cameron Beaubier. The Californian gave
himself a mountain of work to do after mis-
THE PITTSBURGH
MOTOAMERICA
ROUND SAW JOSH
HERRIN GRAB HIS
FIRST SUPERBIKE
WIN IN FIVE YEARS,
WHILE TONI ELIAS
HIT BACK AT
CAMERON BEAUBIER
IN RACE TWO
