off Herrin, with Sean Dylan Kelly
(Vision Wheel M4 Ecstar Suzuki)
rounding out the top five and
saving face for the team after
Richie Escalante, who was fast
closing in on Beaubier and Fong
when his machine called it quits
at the three-quarter distance
mark.
Race two was another knock
'em down, drag 'em out affair,
only this time it was primarily
between Beaubier and Fong af
-
ter Herrin dropped back follow-
ing a front-end slide. Beaubier
was pushing like mad and had
come within an ace of lobbing
the BMW and his title chances
away when he had an almighty
front-end loss going through
the fast right-hander at turn 18.
The Californian just saved it and
Beaubier fired first with pole
position at Circuit of The Ameri
-
cas, his time 0.32 of a second up
on Jake Gagne (Attack Perfor-
mance Progressive Yamaha),
with Herrin, fresh from a leg
fracture suffered in his race-two
crash at Mid-Ohio, completing the
top three. It wasn't a happy quali
-
fying for Fong, with two crashes
so far, ensuring he started from
the third row in seventh.
One of the great qualities of
Josh Herrin is when the chips
are down, you know he's going
to come out swinging, and that's
exactly what he did in race one,
taking an emotional win after
a dogfight between himself,
Beaubier and Fong, as the top
three in this year's champion
-
ship swapped paint repeatedly
over the 12 laps.
Herrin was hurting, but his
three-tenths-of-a-second win
was the best possible situa
-
tion, as it clawed him back 10
points on Fong and five points
on Beaubier after two rounds,
where he scored a third, a 14th,
a seventh and a DNF, the gap re-
duced to 18 points at this stage.
Beaubier had Fong crawling
all over him as the Yamaha man
used his superior corner speed
to drag back the advantage
Beaubier and Herrin gained on
COTA's long straights. Beaubier
went for the divebomb move
on Herrin at the last corner only
to run wide and leave the door
open for Fong, but the BMW just
dragged the Yamaha to the line,
securing Beaubier a crucial five
points over Fong in the title race.
Hayden Gillim (Real Steel
Honda) was fourth, 11 seconds
VOLUME ISSUE SEPTEMBER , P87
1 JOSH HERRIN
1ST/3RD SUPERBIKE
"I woke up this morning in a lot more
pain," Herrin said after race two. "I
think I just had to grit it yesterday,
and I think the bone doesn't like it.
Today was definitely harder on me.
I wouldn't say that's why we weren't
able to be fighting with those guys.
Cam [Beaubier] just left and was re-
ally fast, and I wasn't. I tried to hang
on. Really that's it."
MYOWNRACE
The hard luck story of the
weekend must go to Richie
Escalante (54), who was on
track to close down Beaubier
and Fong in race one, when a
mechanical problem stopped
his Suzuki on the last lap. To
compound the misery, his
GSX-R dropped onto three
cylinders in race two and
forced him out again.
