2021 MOTOAMERICA PREVIEW
P92
FEATURE
Then there's Gagne's Attack
Performance Yamaha teammate
Herrin, the most experienced of
the elite riders in the series. Ad-
ditionally, Herrin is the only for-
mer AMA Superbike Champion
in the field this season, having
won that title in 2013. He's new
to the Attack squad this year,
having finished sixth in the series
last year on the Scheibe Rac-
ing BMW S 1000 RR, but Herrin
has extensive experience on the
Yamaha R1 Superbike. That's the
machine he won the champion-
ship on, so if he gets comfort-
able on the bike again it could
mark serious trouble for the rest
of the Superbike field.
Suzuki will be well represented
by M4 Ecstar Suzuki's Bobby
Fong and Cameron Petersen.
Along with Baz and Gagne, Fong
is on equal footing in terms of
pre-season favorite. Not only
was he fastest at the COTA test,
he is also the only rider in the
championship this season to
have won a MotoAmerica Super-
bike race last year. He won three
races en route to his ranking of
third in the final 2020 standings.
He also has the know-how of the
M4 Ecstar squad, the longest-
running team in the paddock
and one with an impressive list of
national championships and wins
to its credit.
Petersen comes off a break-
through 2020 that saw him
dominate MotoAmerica Stock
1000 on the Altus Motorsports
Suzuki GSX-R1000. After years of
struggle, highlighted by intermit-
tent sparks of brilliance, Petersen
finally looked like the smooth and
fast veteran that he's becoming
in last year's Stock 1000 class.
There's unquestionably going
to be a learning curve moving
up to the Superbike ranks, but
Petersen, whose dad, Robbie,
was a leading AMA 250 Grand
Prix competitor in the 1980s, is
Westby Racing Yamaha's
Mathew Scholtz, a former
winner, hopes to have a
breakthrough season.
