The 2025 MotoAmerica Superbike Championship is reaching what promises to be a fever-pitched conclusion as the series heads to the penultimate round at Circuit of The Americas in Austin, Texas, this weekend, with three riders within striking distance of earning the coveted Superbike crown.
The three men still in the fight are Attack Performance Progressive Yamaha Racing’s Bobby Fong, Tytlers Cycle Racing’s Cameron Beaubier, and Warhorse HSBK Racing Ducati’s Josh Herrin.
Fong leads Beaubier by 17 points, with near-season-long points leader Herrin now on the outside looking in at 27 points behind. However, there are 125 points still on the board, with 50 of them up for grabs this weekend in Texas and 75 points more awaiting the pack with a tripleheader finale slated for New Jersey Motorsports Park, September 26-28.
So how did they get to this point?
Fong is atop the point standings because he has been on a heater for the past seven races, with five wins in a row, a second, and a third vaulting him to where he is now. At the top. Fong won race one at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course to take his streak to five, but his third-place finish in race two put an end to that.
It was Beaubier who snapped the streak with the five-time MotoAmerica Superbike Champion winning race two at Mid-Ohio in a record-breaking performance for the Californian. The win was Beaubier’s 90th career victory across all AMA road race classes, moving him out of a tie with Josh Hayes and making him the all-time leader in that category. It also ended a drought of 10 races without a victory for Beaubier, dating back to May and round two at Road Atlanta.
Of Beaubier’s 90 wins, 69 of them have come in the Superbike class.
If the most recent round at Mid-Ohio was a big one for Fong and Beaubier for different reasons, it was a disastrous one for Herrin.
It began with qualifying with the defending MotoAmerica Superbike Champion missing out on a front-row start for the first time this season. Herrin’s time was a tick over a second slower than Beaubier’s pole-winning lap time.
Things got worse in the two races with Herrin ending up seventh in race one after his Mid-Ohio meltdown started with him not wanting the race to start because of the oil-dry that was used in the right-hander at the end of the backstraight. The race went on, however, with Herrin almost crashing in the same corner. By the time he regained his composure, he was well back and had to fight his way up to seventh by the end of the 16-lap race.
On Sunday, things got even worse for Herrin. After he and Fong bumped on the seventh lap, both went off track. Herrin, however, got the worst of it. While Fong was able to rejoin quickly, and ultimately finished third, Herrin tipped over at low speed when he ran out of real estate and hit the air fence. By the time he got going again, Herrin was well down the order. Then, to make matters worse, he ended up crashing out of the race and suffered a right-leg injury.
Herrin’s horrible three-race stretch (he also crashed out of the lead in race two at VIR) translated to just 11 points while Fong scored 66 points and Beaubier tallied 49 points in the same three-race span.
Thus, the standings heading into COTA are Fong (278), Beaubier (261) and Herrin (251).
The best of the rest heading into the 16th and 17th races of the season has been Fong’s Attack Performance Progressive Yamaha Racing teammate Jake Gagne. Gagne and Fong are the only two riders in the top five who have scored points in all 15 races, and that consistency sees Gagne a comfortable fourth in the championship with one win and seven total podiums, including his second-place finish behind Beaubier in race two at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course.
Vision Wheel M4 Suzuki’s Richie Escalante is fifth in the standings. Escalante has two podiums in 2025 and has scored points in 14 of the 15 races. He will be fighting the rest of the way to keep his teammate Sean Dylan Kelly behind him in the title chase. The two are separated by just 15 points heading to COTA, the site of Kelly’s first-career Superbike win a year ago and one of Escalante’s favorite tracks on the calendar.
Lurking behind those two is Real Steel Honda’s JD Beach, the runaway leader of the Superbike Cup for those competing in the Superbike class on Stock 1000-spec motorcycles. Beach is just three points behind Kelly with the Kentuckian hot off a third-place Superbike finish in race one at Mid-Ohio.
Hayden Gillim is eighth, 19 points behind his Real Steel Honda teammate Beach and 36 points clear of BPR Yamaha Racing’s Bryce Kornbau.
Aftercare Scheibe Racing’s Danilo Lewis rounds out the top 10 in the championship point standings heading into the Texas round.
Pre-COTA Notes…
Last year’s Superbike round at Circuit of The Americas consisted of three Superbike races, with one on Saturday and two on Sunday. The big winner of the three was Cameron Beaubier with the five-time MotoAmerica Superbike Champion winning race one and three and finishing second in race two to Sean Dylan Kelly. On Saturday, Beaubier topped Josh Herrin and Richie Escalante in race one. In race two on Sunday, Kelly took the win with Beaubier second and Herrin third. Sunday’s finale was won by Beaubier over Herrin and Kelly.
Cameron Beaubier earned pole position for the three Superbike races with his lap-record-breaking 2:06.559 besting Josh Herrin and Loris Baz. Beaubier was the only rider to get into the 2:06s. Row two consisted of Sean Dylan Kelly, Richie Escalante, and Xavi Forés.
Of the 15 MotoAmerica Superbike races held at COTA, non-Americans have won nine of them. The all-time win leader at COTA is Toni Elias, the now-retired Spaniard winning six races in Texas. The riders with the second most victories at COTA are Danilo Petrucci, with the Italian winning both races in 2022; Josh Herrin, who won a race in 2019 and won race two in 2023; and Cameron Beaubier, who won two of the three races last year. The third foreigner to win at COTA is Mathew Scholtz with the South African winning race one in 2018 for Westby Racing.
Suzuki is the manufacturer with the most MotoAmerica Superbike wins at COTA with seven. Yamaha has four victories in Austin with Josh Herrin giving Ducati its third win in Texas in 2023. BMW won all three races last year with Cameron Beaubier (two) and Sean Dylan Kelly (one). With Cameron Beaubier finally winning his 90th AMA race at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course a few weeks ago, the victory brought his Superbike win total to 69. It wasn’t long ago that Mat Mladin’s Superbike win tally of 82 seemed to be out of reach. Beaubier, however, is now just 13 wins away from tying the Australian at the top of the all-time AMA Superbike win list.
