CHAMPIONSHIP
BY LARRY LAWRENCE
PHOTOGRAPHY BY BRIAN J. NELSON
E
verything was going along
fine for Cameron Beau-
bier. The Monster Energy/
Graves Yamaha rider had seem-
ingly put the ghosts of Barbers'
past behind him. The memo-
ries of crashes past and DNFs
beaten back by stellar practice
and qualifying sessions that re-
sulted in starting from the pole.
In Superbike race one Beaubier
seemed in control of things and
then he wasn't. On lap eight it
all went wrong. Beaubier was
suddenly flung from his blue and
black Yamaha R1. Jumping the
curbing in turn eight before flick-
ing it over for turn nine, Beaubier
lost it.
"It was no one's fault but my
own," Beaubier admitted. "I got
in there a little hot and tried to
stay on the track and got to the
curb and I was using too much
rear brake and it went to the lock
and pitched me off. That was
pretty frustrating."
VOL. 52 ISSUE 24 JUNE 16, 2015 P151
Briefly...
Josh Hayes and Cameron Beaubi-
er each have five Superbike wins on
the season after the Barber round. It
marks career Superbike win number
53 for Hayes, that's second on the all-
time AMA Superbike wins list next to
Mat Mladin (82 wins). Beaubier now
has eight wins in his career and that
ties him with Tommy Hayden and Wes
Cooley for 19th on the all-time list.
Monster Energy/Graves Motors-
ports Yamaha's Cameron Beaubier
earned his second Superbike pole
of the year and the fourth of his young
Superbike career. Beaubier lapped
at 1:25.599 to put .455 of a sec-
ond between himself and Yoshimura
Suzuki's Roger Hayden. Beaubier's
teammate Josh Hayes filled the front
row of the grid. The Superbike track
record at Barber is 1:23.664 set by
Mat Mladin on a Yoshimura Suzuki
in 2008. Last year's pole time was
1:25.324 set by Josh Hayes.
Lightning disabled Barber Motors-
ports Park's central scoring tower
before the races and it sat unpow-
ered the rest of the weekend.
Ezra Beaubier, younger brother of
Superbike series leader Cameron
Beaubier, took a medical helicopter
ride to a Birmingham hospital after
crashing his KTM RC390 in qualify-
ing on Saturday. According to Cam-
eron, his brother was taken in for a
precautionary scan since he hit his
head pretty hard in the crash. Ac-
cording to his brother, Ezra was
doing okay, but he did not race on
Sunday.
Josh Hayes did an excellent job in
avoiding his Yamaha teammate Cam-
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