MotoAmerica Superbike Championship Is Up For Grabs In Finale
Three riders will go into the MotoAmerica finale at New Jersey Motorsports Park this weekend with a chance to leave the Garden State with the 2025 Superbike Championship.
Attack Performance Progressive Yamaha Racing’s Bobby Fong leads the way, eight points clear of Tytlers Cycle Racing’s Cameron Beaubier, and 22 points ahead of Warhorse HSBK Racing Ducati’s Josh Herrin. With the New Jersey round a tripleheader, there are 75 points on the table. Fong’s teammate Jake Gagne is fourth, 77 points behind, so the title will go to one of the three.
If history means anything in this case, it’s worth noting that five-time champion Beaubier (2015, 2016, 2018, 2019, and 2020) and two-time champ Herrin (2013 and 2024) already have Superbike titles on their résumés, while Fong (2019) has a MotoAmerica Supersport title. Beaubier has 70 Superbike wins to his credit, Herrin has 22 and Fong has 10.
As for 2025, Fong heads into the season finale with five Superbike victories. Ditto for Beaubier. Herrin leads the way with six wins in 2025. As for podiums, Fong and Beaubier are both tied with 13 top-three finishes out of 17 races. Herrin has 11 podiums.
Fong leads the championship as the series heads to New Jersey because he not only won five times and has 13 podiums, but he also is the only one of the three to score points in every single round. Beaubier and Herrin each have a no-score on their dance cards.
Three disastrous races in a row at VIRginia International Raceway and Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course put Herrin on his back foot heading into the most recent round at Circuit of The Americas a week and a half ago. The defending champion led the title chase before those three disastrous races but slipped to third at the end of the three races. Herrin, however, kept his hopes alive with a victory and a third-place finish in the two races in Texas. He’s on the outside looking in.
Beaubier’s only non-finish was his crash in race two at Road America. He’s put himself within striking distance of Fong with two wins and a second-place finish in the past three races.
While all three hummed the same tune about being happy that the series finale is at New Jersey Motorsports Park, they also know that NJMP is synonymous with “anything can happen.” We’ve seen it all there: heat, rain, wind… and perfect racing weather. It’s unpredictable, and that’s what makes it a fan favorite and the perfect place for the series finale.
With Gagne a comfortable fourth in the championship, the battle for fifth will go to the bitter end.
Vision Wheel M4 ECSTAR Suzuki’s Sean Dylan Kelly holds the spot after his solid fifth/fourth weekend at COTA. Kelly is seven points ahead of Real Steel Honda’s JD Beach. With his pair of sixth-place finishes at COTA, Beach also wrapped up the Superbike Cup for those racing Stock 1000-spec motorcycles in the Superbike class. Those two sixths at COTA resulted in two more Superbike Cup victories for Beach.
The rider who suffered the most at COTA was Kelly’s Vision Wheel M4 ECSTAR Suzuki teammate Richie Escalante. Escalante had fourth place in the bag in race one when his Suzuki failed him on the final lap. In race two, he had another mechanical failure, this one early in the race.
With zero points scored, Escalante slid from fifth to seventh in the point standings. He trails Beach by seven points and Kelly by nine points with the three races at NJMP on the horizon.
Beach’s Real Steel Honda teammate Hayden Gillim was fourth and seventh in the two COTA races and he sits eighth in the title chase – 15 points behind Escalante and 49 points ahead of Jones Honda rider Ashton Yates.
Aftercare Scheibe Racing’s Danilo Lewis is one point behind Yates and one point ahead of Flo4Law Racing’s Benjamin Smith, with BPR Yamaha’s Bryce Kornbau another three points behind in the battle for 10th in the championship.
Pre-NJMP Notes…
Josh Herrin and Loris Baz split wins in last year’s Superbike series finale. Herrin beat Bobby Fong by .403 of a second with Baz third in race one. In the wet race two, Baz topped Sean Dylan Kelly by .151 of a second with Fong third, just .291 of a second behind. Cameron Beaubier finished fourth in both races a year ago.
Loris Baz earned pole position for the two Superbike races a year ago, with the Frenchman lapping a 1:22.737 on the 2.250-mile racetrack. Cameron Beaubier and Brandon Paasch joined Baz on the front row.
If Bobby Fong comes out of NJMP with the MotoAmerica Superbike Championship, he will be the 23rd different rider to win an AMA Superbike title in the 49 years of the series.
Cameron Beaubier’s win in race two at COTA was the 70th Superbike victory of his career, and that puts him 12 wins behind all-time AMA Superbike winner Mat Mladin, who has 82 victories.
Beaubier owns the Superbike lap record at NJMP with his 1:19.806 coming in 2020.
Although it all depends on the results from this weekend’s three Superbike races at New Jersey Motorsports Park, the 2025 Superbike Championship will likely rank in the top three of close Superbike title chases in the MotoAmerica era. The closest finish thus far comes from the first season of MotoAmerica with Cameron Beaubier topping his Yamaha teammate Josh Hayes by just four points. In 2019, Beaubier beat Toni Elias for the crown by five points. The next closest is from 2022 when Jake Gagne won his second title by 20 points.
OrangeCat Racing’s Andrew Lee and Jayson Uribe will join the Superbike grid at NJMP after the pair recently wrapped up a highly successful Stock 1000 season that saw Lee take the title with Uribe third. The pair’s Stock 1000-spec BMW M 1000 RRs have been upgraded to almost full Superbike spec, with aftermarket swingarms, rear shocks, and triple clamps, and the duo stayed in Texas after the MotoAmerica round to test the bikes at COTA. Lee will run #67 on his BMW with Uribe using his familiar #36.
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