Cycle News

CHAMPIONSHIP VOL. 55 ISSUE 36 SEPTEMBER 11, 2018 P65 my head down and kept going. I've never wrapped up a champi- onship with a win before. It's an amazing feeling." Elias was magnanimous in defeat, saying, "This is not the first time I lose a championship. When that happens, you learn a lot. So, I think we did a really strong part of the champion- ship when Cam and Yamaha were struggling more. They've been smart enough to take second positions, third posi- tions, to be consistent taking the points. When the situation gets changed, we didn't. "We always talk as a team when we win, when we lose. When things got a little bit more difficult, we didn't finish on the Elias completing the podium in a very processional race. "Honestly, going into both these races I was running pretty low on confidence," Beaubier said. "I just didn't really have the best feeling in the wet after I crashed [in Superpole] going into yesterday's race. Also, this morning in warm up, the feeling wasn't there. When the feeling's not there in the wet, it makes it really tough. "After the first couple laps, af- ter the warm-up lap and the first couple laps in the race, it kind of came back and I was able to tick off some laps. I was honestly surprised when I saw plus-one on my board. I was like, 'well, what do I got to lose?' Just put I came across the start/finish line thinking I was about to get blasted by everybody. I looked back, which I never do, and saw a big lead. I was thinking, 'well, maybe somebody is passing me on the right.' I looked, no one was there. So, it was weird." The race marked one nail in the coffin of Toni Elias' champi- onship hopes, as the Spaniard threw the factory Yoshimura Suzuki on the deck and out of the race when he crashed out of third place, handing Beaubier a 72-point title advantage heading into Sunday's race two. And Cameron made the most of it, taking the second race win by 13.675 seconds from a season-best Roger Hayden, with iii My Own Race: 1 TONI ELIAS DNF-3 SUPERBIKE "I want to congratulate Cameron for a great season," Toni Elias said at the end of the weekend. "We had some great battles this year and he and his team really stepped up their level. I gave it my best to try to keep the championship alive yesterday. I was trying to gain another position to earn back more points on Cameron when I pushed too hard and crashed. Today we came back to the podium and it was great to be up there with Roger. Now we will try to finish strong in the final race at Barber and then prepare to come back stronger than ever next season. I have a great team behind me and we will all be very motivated to try to win back this championship next year." 31 GARRETT GERLOFF 5-4 SUPERBIKE "I was happy with my R1 and my start, but between practice this morning and the race, a lot of things seemed to change and we lost the good feeling that we had," said Gar- rett Gerloff. "I rode the best I could, but a fourth-place [finish] was all we had. I'm ready to come back for the last round at Barber." 11 MATHEW SCHOLTZ 2-DNF SUPERBIKE "Well, that didn't go the way we'd hoped," Mathew Scholtz said. "We had a good setup for the race, and I was feeling comfortable after having a little slip at the start. I settled in, and started working on closing the gap to Cam [Beaubier, in first place]. But, when you're racing in the rain, it only takes a small mistake to ruin your day. I'm sorry to our team that I crashed out because we had a strong bike today, and I was in a good posi- tion for a solid result. It was definitely not the birthday present I wanted."

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