As improbable as it seemed just 24 hours earlier, Cameron Beaubier emerged from a suspenseful Sunday at New Jersey Motorsports Park with the 2025 MotoAmerica Superbike Championship – the sixth of his illustrious career.
It was a Sunday chock-full of shocking Superbike action with Tytlers Cycle Racing’s Beaubier somehow coming out of it all with the title, despite going into the final day of the season on the outside looking in and 13 points behind Attack Performance Progressive Yamaha Racing’s Bobby Fong. Overhauling Fong was going to be a difficult proposition. After all, he was having a career year, scoring points in every round, and winning his sixth race of the year in race one on Saturday at NJMP.
Then came Sunday. In the second of the three races, Fong was in a battle with championship rivals Beaubier and Warhorse HSBK Racing Ducati’s Josh Herrin. The trio were at the front of the field and battling for victory and championship points. Herrin led Fong and Beaubier on the final lap with the trio together. Then it all went wrong for Fong as he crashed out of second and could only watch as Herrin won with Beaubier second.
Vision Wheel M4 ECSTAR Suzuki’s Richie Escalante had caught the lead trio as they battled, watched as Fong crashed, and earned his third podium of the year after an impressive ride.
Real Steel Honda’s Hayden Gillim was fourth, a few seconds clear of Vision Wheel M4 ECSTAR Suzuki’s Sean Dylan Kelly. Fong’s teammate Jake Gagne was sixth, well clear of OrangeCat Racing’s Jayson Uribe, who had his hands full with Jones Honda’s Ashton Yates. Real Steel Honda’s JD Beach and BPR Racing Yamaha’s Bryce Kornbau rounded out the top 10.
And, just like that, it had all changed at the top. The order was flipped, and it was Beaubier who was seven points ahead of Fong and 13 clear of Herrin. To take the title, Fong would have to win with Beaubier third or worse.
On to race three and more mayhem. This time, it was Fong out front with Beaubier, and his points lead, tucked in behind. Herrin didn’t have the pace of the top two and was instead being hassled by Kelly and Gillim for third.
On the eighth lap, the fight for the championship ended with Fong crashing for a second time and allowing Beaubier to race unmolested to victory. And a sixth title.
Herrin, meanwhile, ran a bit wide on the final lap, and Kelly didn’t waste any time in passing him up the inside. The gap was suddenly wide and Gillim liked what he saw and followed Kelly’s lead to move into third. The pair crossed the line in formation with Kelly second and Gillim third for his first-career Superbike podium.
Herrin was fourth with Uribe fifth, a tick ahead of Escalante. Gagne was seventh with Beach, BPR Racing’s Deion Campbell and Flo4Law’s Benjamin Smith completing the top 10.
The final championship standings have Beaubier on top with 371 points, 25 more than Herrin’s 346 and 32 more than Fong’s 339. Gagne and Kelly rounded out the top five with Escalante, Beach, Gillim, Yates, and Kornbau rounding out the top 10.
Superbike Race 2
- Josh Herrin (Ducati)
- Cameron Beaubier (BMW)
- Richie Escalante (Suzuki)
- Hayden Gillim (Honda)
- Sean Dylan Kelly (Suzuki)
- Jake Gagne (Yamaha)
- Jayson Uribe (BMW)
- Ashton Yates (Honda)
- JD Beach (Honda)
- Bryce Kornbau (Yamaha)
Superbike Race 3
- Cameron Beaubier (BMW)
- Sean Dylan Kelly (Suzuki)
- Hayden Gillim (Honda)
- Josh Herrin (Ducati)
- Jayson Uribe (BMW)
- Richie Escalante (Suzuki)
- Jake Gagne (Yamaha)
- JD Beach (Honda)
- Deion Campbell (Yamaha)
- Benjamin Smith (Yamaha)
Quotes – Superbike Race 2
Richie Escalante – Third Place
“All weekend I felt really good with the bike. The problem is the lap times are so close over the weekend, so I’m starting P9. Normally, I’m not a super-good start, so I lose a couple of positions, but my pace is good. I think the front group started battling, so helped to recover the gap. My Vision Wheel M4 ECSTAR Suzuki is working amazing. I feel really good with the bike. I’m every lap closing the gap, and then finally super close to the podium. We got a little bit lucky with Bobby’s (Fong) crash, so I finished on the podium. For me, the most happy is I’m super close to the podium, so I think we have the pace to fight for the win later. We’ll see.”
Cameron Beaubier – Second Place
“I got a good start but wasn’t very aggressive in the first corner. Then I ran wide on the paint in the second corner. In the back of my head, I was like, ‘It rained pretty good last night’ and I didn’t want to take too many chances out there. Got passed again going in there. I got slotted back to seventh or eighth, and then my race started from there. I was able to pick off some guys. Honestly, at the beginning of the race, I felt a lot better than I did yesterday. I found myself in the lead. Still, I’ve just been fighting my bike a little bit this weekend. I feel like I can run with the guys at the front, but it’s taking a lot of risk. It’s a little tough right now. Everyone has got their issues they’re dealing with. We’re going to see what we can do for race three. It’s probably going to be just as crazy as race two. Hats off to Josh (Herrin). He rode awesome. Bob (Fong) was riding great, too. That incident, to me, I didn’t even see Josh in front of me because of the way when you flick it left to right, it’s hard to see what really happened. I think it was just a racing incident. It sucks for Bob. I’m bummed for Bob. Somehow, we’re back in the championship lead, and we’ve got a race to go. So, it should be interesting.”
Josh Herrin – Winner
“I didn’t even know (that Bobby Fong had crashed). Honestly, that left, right, these guys click third, and I stay in second there, so I am constantly slower mid-corner speed than they are. He hit me earlier in the race in that same spot, I think. I felt something the first time I went around him. I don’t know. Honestly, I have no clue what happened. I just know that he was freaking out. I stopped on the side of the track, and he was already going like this to me. I was just trying to figure out what happened, and he just kept saying, “I’m going to F’ing kill you.” So, I don’t know what happened. In my book, he’s got a huge lead on us. I wouldn’t have been up there with us. I just would have cruised around in third knowing that’s all I had to do. All year, I’ve been saying to my guys, Cam (Beaubier) has had unlucky races. I’ve had unlucky races, and he (Fong) hasn’t had any yet. That’s all we can do is just do our best and hope that everybody has their unlucky day. I’m glad that he’s all right, but there were no ill intentions on my side. All I can assume is that he ran into the back of me, I don’t know, I’m just happy we got the win. We’ve got an exciting race three for all the fans. It’s coming down to the wire, which is awesome. It makes those times where I got up and finished the race whenever we had something go wrong worth it. I just wish that I would have got those last couple points in Ohio and not had that incident, but it is what it is. I’m just happy and grateful to be up here. All three of us had a chance for a championship today, so I don’t remember the last time that happened. Just excited.”
Quotes – Superbike Race 3
Cameron Beaubier – Winner
“I don’t even know what to say. This year has been one of the craziest Superbike years I’ve ever had, with the speed Bob (Fong) had at the beginning, and middle of the season, and then (Josh) Herrin coming on strong. Coming into this weekend, we struggled really bad here last year. We weren’t on the podium one day. I showed up with some confidence after COTA and went and fell down twice Friday and was scratching my head. I just have to thank my team for continuing to believe in me and making adjustments to the bike literally all weekend to get to where we were that last race. I felt awesome in the race. Bob had a great pace at the beginning. It sucks he fell over. Then after he did, I just kept nailing those laps, those high 20s, low 21s. My bike felt the best it’s felt all weekend. I just can’t believe it. Like I said, Bob rode incredible this year. His pace has been untouchable at times. We were able to get there this weekend, which we didn’t see that happening Friday. Shout out to the team, Bell, Alpinestars, the man above, my parents, family for coming out, Shelby and Brody for just everything they do for me. Brody is like the light of my life right now. He’s so fun. It’s so fun to be a dad. I don’t really know what else to say. I’m stoked.”
Sean Dylan Kelly – Second Place
“Honestly, I definitely had to think about that yesterday. Yesterday everything was wide open. There were still three races to go. I was behind the three championship guys yesterday. I finished tenths off of them. Not that I didn’t try to do it, I just knew that I couldn’t do anything stupid, because I probably wouldn’t be able to sleep or someone wouldn’t let me sleep if I did something stupid. That hurt a little bit, just not being able to give all my potential yesterday in race one. Today, in race two, I had a big issue and fell back even though I knew that I had more in the pocket. Definitely the best I felt with the Suzuki this race three. I felt way more confident and consistent. It was the last race of the season. It was pretty clear that it was between Bobby and Cam halfway through the race. Herrin was kind of catching, but kind of not. I was just sitting there behind him. Again, being smart. Once Bobby was out and I saw Cam was sitting there, I was like, ‘That means that I can fight. I can pull out the knife. I did exactly that with a few laps to go. I did a few passes on Josh (Herrin), and he would always get me back. Definitely got it done in the last lap. It felt pretty amazing to just get it done like that, finish on the podium, which was exactly the objective. Not just for the weekend, but the objective for the whole year. Super challenging year for me, but I didn’t stop believing. I didn’t stop fighting. I worked, I think, the hardest I’ve ever worked. I think it showed bringing some speed and some results that haven’t really been seen too much on this thing. It was nice also that Richie (Escalante) got on the podium earlier today, so the team atmosphere was pretty amazing. Huge thank you to the whole Vision Wheel M4 ECSTAR Suzuki, to my crew who worked extremely hard, all my sponsors. Still no contract for next year, so let’s see what happens.”
Hayden Gillim – Third Place
“I got lucky. I’ve had a lot of fourth places this year. The majority of them have been a little bit of luck – guys crashing or running off or something. This one isn’t any different, but it is my first Superbike podium, so it was really cool. Sean (Dylan Kelly) made his move on Josh (Herrin) and ended up running wider than even I was expecting him to. I figured he would get me back with the power that that thing’s got under it. I figured he’d be able to get me back before we got down into turn six. Whenever he didn’t, I was just like, ‘All right. Sean had already gone. I was struggling the first half of that lap, up to the point and they had got a little bit of a gap on me. It’s frustrating because with being back-to-back Superbike and Baggers, I’ve been dreading today because I know I’m not going to get to enjoy it as much as I feel like I want to. I didn’t get to go stand up on the box or anything. But it’s cool. I’ve got a big bucket list of racing stuff I have left to do, and today I finally got to check one of those off. It was really cool. Luckily, I think it actually might have helped a little bit for the Bagger race. I had a pretty big boost of adrenaline going into it, where normally I’m a little worn down before the start, and it takes me a couple laps to get going. It was just really good. I’ve got two really good teams and two really good crews. Both sides are super supportive. It’s really cool to have the guys I’ve got around me. Just can’t thank everybody enough.”
