Briefly...
Cameron Beaubier's two Mo-
toAmerica AMA Superbike wins at
Indianapolis pushed his career total
to 11 wins. That moved Beaubier past
riders like Kevin Schwantz, Aaron
Yates and Mike Baldwin into a tie
with Anthony Gobert for 15th on the
all-time AMA Superbike wins list.
Having Superbikes race at the India-
napolis Motor Speedway was the
final culmination of the first Super-
bike tests at the track 12 years ago.
Vincent Haskovec and Jake Zemke
were the first riders to test the feasi-
bility of motorcycle racing at the Indi-
anapolis Motor Speedway. Thanks to
their efforts and early input, a design
concept for a new motorcycle rac-
ing circuit was put into place. Has-
kovec and Zemke tested on the old
Indy Formula One circuit in October
of 2003. The test was supposed to
be secret, but word got out (possi-
bly by fans going to the infield muse-
um). News helicopters flew over the
Speedway and got video footage of
the bikes circulating the track and it
led the news that evening. The origi-
nal intent was to bring an AMA Super-
bike round to the track, but the IMS
staff was thinking much bigger and
eventually it was MotoGP that found
a home at the historic venue. It's also
noteworthy that the first motor race
at the Speedway was a national Fed-
eration of American Motorcyclists
(FAM) event, the predecessor to the
AMA, held in 1909.
If Yamaha riders win the final two
legs of the MotoAmerica AMA Su-
perbike Series at New Jersey it
would mark a clean sweep of the en-
tire season by a single manufacturer.
The last time that happened was in
CHAMPIONSHIP
BY LARRY LAWRENCE
PHOTOGRAPHY BY BRIAN J. NELSON
C
ameron Beaubier showed
some real cunning in his
sweep of the first-ever
MotoAmerica AMA Superbike
races held at the historic India-
napolis Motor Speedway. In the
first race on Saturday, it was
a case of figuring out how to
stay ahead of a hard-charging
Roger Hayden on the final lap.
He did that. In Sunday's race
two, a third element came into
the play—the weather—and once
again, Beaubier rode a think-
ing man's race, figuring the
red flag could be thrown at any
minute and making sure he did
everything he could to lead at
start-finish line in the closing
laps. His intuition was right on.
Sunday's race ended early when
VOL. 52 ISSUE 32 AUGUST 11, 2015 P83
continued on next page
