King Cam: Beaubier rules MotoAmerica Motul Superbike on Saturday

After winning both races here in dominating fashion last year and breaking a 10-year-old track record in Saturday's qualifying, Monster Energy/Yamalube/Yamaha Factory Racing rider Cameron Beaubier cruised to a 7.296-second victory on his YZF-R1, spending most of the race comfortably managing his cushion to second-place finisher Josh Herrin on the Attack Performance/Herrin Compound Yamaha R1 and third-place Toni Elias on the Yoshimura Suzuki Factory Racing GSX-R1000. Beaubier, from nearby Roseville, California, backed by a strong cheering section, reeled off a series of five laps in the 1:35 range and then dropped to the 1:36 and 1:37 range to manage his lead the rest of the way. Herrin and Elias each managed one lap in the 1:35 range and nobody else in the race turned even one lap that fast.

In qualifying, Beaubier broke the 2008 lap record set by Ben Spies by 0.66 seconds.

Herrin got around the outside of Beaubier in the first turn, but once Beaubier retook the lead on the first lap, his biggest challenge for most of the race was maintaining focus while running all alone, eight seconds ahead of the field.

"About halfway through the race, I kind of lost focus, blew the chicane and went through the dirt," said Beaubier. "And almost did the same thing five laps later. I'm not used to running out front like that. Normally we have a tough battle."

With the top three holding position, all the action was happening further back. M4 ECSTAR Suzuki rider Jake Lewis and Genuine Broaster Chicken Honda rider Cameron Petersen were fighting for fifth place when the almost bizarrely bad luck that has hurt Petersen all season literally bit him again. Petersen came cruising into the pits in obvious pain, his left leg dangling, and had to be lifted off the motorcycle.

Petersen nearly crashed in turn eight but saved it, said team owner Danny Walker. The near crash pulled his left foot off the peg and it apparently got caught between the chain and the swingarm, grinding up his boot and injuring his foot.

"It's not nearly as bad as it could be," said Walker "It was pretty ugly when he came in."

Petersen was taken to the hospital and no further information on his condition is yet available.

MotoAmerica Motul Superbike standings
1	Cameron Beaubier	273
2	Toni Elias	215
3	Josh Herrin	171
4	Mathew Scholtz	152
5	Garrett Gerloff	144

Bad luck also continued to beset Westby Racing's Mathew Scholtz, who fell back to fourth in the standings after another DNF. Scholtz qualified second, also breaking the old Ben Spies lap record, but got off to a bad start in the race and admitted he crashed because he was pushing too hard, trying to make up for his mistake.

Beaubier's teammate, Garrett Gerloff, rode a mostly lonely race to finish in fourth. With no changes of position in the top five after Scholtz and Petersen went out, the most entertaining scrap in the field was between Yoshimura Suzuki's Roger Hayden and Scheibe Racing's Danny Eslick, with the two passing each other back and forth before Hayden took sixth in the end.

Tires and silly season

Both of the top two Superbike racers say that the new Dunlop rear tire continues to play a role in the dramatic change of fortunes that has seen Beaubier surge from a 35-point deficit to a 58-point lead over Elias.

"I feel like the big rear tire is definitely helping us right now on the Yamaha, especially for my style because I ride on the side of the tire a lot and the tire just has a bigger contact patch on the edge of the tire," said Beaubier.

The view is very different under the Yoshimura tent.

"Since that tire arrived, it's like Yamaha make a step and we make two steps back," said Elias. "The tire has more (contact) patch, but for some reason I don't feel that patch. I don't feel what they feel. So I would like to feel that.

"I would like to tell you the reason for this but I don't know."

Meanwhile, Bobby Fong has parted ways with the Quicksilver/Lexin Moto/Hudson Motorcycles team and Walker announced Saturday that Fong will join the Genuine Broaster Chicken Honda team for the last three rounds. The team had contracted Jayson Uribe to ride a second CBR1000RR at the three western rounds of the series.

Of course the real silly season news everyone is speculating about is who will replace Hayden at Yoshimura Suzuki after he retires at the end of the year. But that's another story for another day.

Supersport

This is the point where desperate hack sportswriters start writing about the fat lady warming up her voice (not that I'd ever resort to that). In the Supersport class, Monster Energy/Y.E.S./Graves Yamaha rider J.D. Beach won Saturday and now has a 91-point lead after eight wins and two second-place finishes in 10 races. He can't clinch the championship this weekend, but he could potentially do it at the next round at Pittsburgh International Race Complex.

The same three riders pulled away at the front, with Beach getting the holeshot and Rickdiculous Racing's Hayden Gillim and M4 ECSTAR Suzuki's Valentin Debise close behind. Gillim and Beach swapped the lead a few times in the middle of the race, but in the second half Beach was able to open a gap. On lap 15, Debise got past Gillim to take second, 2.424 seconds behind Beach. Though the final margin was comfortable, Beach did have to survive one of Gillim's passes, which had Beach nearly coming off his R6 — and as he pointed out, no race at Sonoma Raceway is ever simple.

"This track, it's hard to be consistent," said Beach. "It's slick, it's bumpy, there's hills, it's off-camber, there's all kinds of stuff. Every straightaway and turn, you get a headwind, side wind, tail wind."

MotoAmerica Supersport standings
1	J.D. Beach	240
2	Hayden Gillim	149
3	Valentin Debise	105
4	Cory West	105
5	Nick McFadden	103

Kyle Wyman Racing's Bryce Prince, 2016 Superstock 600 champion, ran with the top three until he ran off track on the third lap, but he was able to come back and reclaim fourth place.

After missing the first four races due to an injury in the Daytona 200, Debise has now fought back to a tie for third in the standings with Cory West, the man who replaced him in the first two rounds and then was able to continue his season with TSE Racing. West finished the race in sixth behind Quicksilver/Lexin/Hudson Motorcycles' Richie Escalante.

Liqui Moly Junior Cup

Ashton Yates took a big bite out of Alex Dumas' huge points lead by surviving at the front while the others around him crashed.

Junior Cup points leader Dumas of KTM Orange Brigade/JP43 Training was leading when he tucked the front of his RC390 under trail braking in the hairpin corner just before the finish line on lap six. MP13 Racing's Cory Ventura, in second right behind Dumas, crashed his Yamaha YZF-R3 immediately after him. That handed Yates the lead on his Yates Racing Kawasaki Ninja 400, but he was hounded by Eric Kondo Racing's Marc Edwards, from nearby Roseville, California, which is also Beaubier's hometown. Edwards, also riding an R3, was pushing Yates but crashed on lap 10 of the 12-lap race.

Liqui Moly Junior Cup standings
1	Alex Dumas	166
2	Ashton Yates	143
3	Sean Ungvarsky	111
4	Jay Newton	107
5	Cory Ventura	104

Ventura and Edwards were able to resume and finish in the points, but the right clip-on broke off of Dumas' KTM and he walked off with no points.

When the dust settled, AGVSPORT America/MonkeyMoto rider Jay Newton and RiderzLaw Racing's Jackson Blackmon, both on Yamaha R3s, joined Yates on the podium. Yates' win cut Dumas' points lead from 48 down to 23 points.

MotoAmerica Twins Cup

Local rider Jeff Tigert won the Twins Cup race on his Suzuki, 20 years after his first-ever race here at Sonoma. Meanwhile, Ghetto Customs/Suzuki rider Chris Parrish consolidated his lead in the championship with a second-place finish on his Suzuki, giving him a 34-point advantage with three rounds remaining. Ruthless Racing/Yamaha's Darren James of Vancouver, Canada, finished the race in third.