SUPERBIKE SHOOTOUT SERIES
VOL. 51 ISSUE 21 MAY 28, 2014 P107
"Luckily I'm okay," Solis said.
"I'll be fine for next weekend."
After the incident things got
worse for Fong, his bike shut on
that same lap and caused him to
drop back to seventh. But fortu-
nately it got back going and Fong
charged back up the pack to
retake the position from GEICO
Honda's Jake Zemke.
A podium finish was a good ef-
fort after all of that, but Fong had
higher expectations.
"It was pretty disappointing,"
Fong said. "I knew it was going to
be tough to win the thing today,
but still I didn't want it to go down
like that.
Zemke held onto fourth for
what was mostly a lonely race for
the man on the Honda.
Behind Zemke was a pack of
Yamahas. And leading that pack
was privateer Chad Lewin on the
CM Motorsports Yamaha, who
had an impressive run in the three
round series and finished the
championship in fourth behind
Beach. As did the former Red
Bull Rookie Bryce Prince, who
was fifth in the championship and
finished the day in sixth aboard
the Tuned Racing Yamaha.
Following Prince was Ryan
Matter and CM Motorsport's Mi-
chael Gilbert. Prince's teammate
Jason Aguilar finished ninth and
in 10th was privateer Mark Harper
on a Triumph.
We Don't Need No Education?
Racers and race teams all want
more track time. Unless injuries,
budgets, or tight schedules dic-
tate otherwise. The almost three-
month gap between round one
and two of the AMA Pro Road
Racing series was a long time
when riders need track time to
learn and grow as racers and
also for teams trying to develop
their bike. So the Superbike
Shootout provided a classroom.
And it was valuable time for the
young racers.
So if school's in session, argu-
ably top of the class was Beau-
bier in Superbikes and Gerloff in
Sportbikes.
While Beaubier hit the ground
running at Daytona, there was
still more to learn and he made
good use of the time to give him
an edge when AMA Pro Racing
resumes.
"I've learned so much about
the bike and riding it in these last
few races," Beaubier said about
the series. "Fontana, I struggled
a little bit there. And then Infine-
on and here [Miller] they've gone
awesome. It just kind of sucks
the way it ended. But in reality I
think that the Superbike Shoot-
out was a really good opportunity
for me to get some more time
on this bike before we go to the
AMA races. And I know going
into Road America next weekend
I'll be ready."
As for Gerloff, it's also been
a great environment to work on
things like riding style and get
some wins under his belt and put
his win drought well behind him.
"This has been an awesome
three rounds to kind of warm up
for all the normal road race tracks
that we go to," Gerloff said. "I've
really been trying to work on
my riding style and try different
things so this has been really
good practice rounds for me to
figure stuff out. I'm really glad I
got to be a part of it. Because I
feel like the people that didn't are
going to be at a disadvantage go-
ing into Road America because
we've already had so much warm
up going into it."
