Random notes, comments, statistics, musings, and bits of trivia from the MotoAmerica Superbikes at Road Atlanta event:
Eight is Enough
Well, it finally happened. While lap records continue to fall every year in virtually every competing race class at virtually every round of the MotoAmerica Championship, there was one record that just wouldn’t surrender. Garrett Gerloff set the Supersport lap record at Michelin Raceway Road Atlanta eight years ago when he circulated the 12-turn, 2.54-mile, North Georgia road course aboard his Monster Energy/Yamalube/Y.E.S./Graves Yamaha YZF-R6 in 1:27.860 during Supersport race two on Sunday, April 30, 2017.
This past Saturday, May 3, 2025, during Supersport Qualifying 2, Mathew Scholtz ripped around Road Atlanta aboard his Strack Racing Yamaha YZF-R9, and did a fastest lap of 1:27.746, which eclipsed Gerloff’s previous lap record by just 114 milliseconds. For reference, humans blink their eyes in anywhere from 100 to 400 milliseconds.
So, it took eight years for Scholtz to break Gerloff’s record in the blink of an eye. You blinked your eyes after you just read that, didn’t you?
Below are the other lap records that were set at Road Atlanta this past weekend:
Stock 1000: Jayson Uribe, 1:25.986 – Lap Record & Race Lap Record – Race 1 (5/3/2025)
King Of The Baggers: Kyle Wyman, 1:28.914 – Race Lap Record – Challenge (5/3/2025)
Super Hooligan: Cory West, 1:29.554 – Lap Record & Race Lap Record – Race 1 (5/3/2025)
Mr. Smith Goes To The Top Five
For as long as MotoAmerica has existed, Benjamin Smith has been racing in our series. He has steadily climbed the development ladder from the KTM RC Cup where he won the class championship in 2017, to Supersport, to Stock 1000, and finally to Superbike. This season, he’s aboard a FLO4LAW/SBU Racing Yamaha YZF-R1, and on Saturday in Superbike race one at Road Atlanta, he notched his first career top-five finish in MotoAmerica’s premier race class. Smith’s result in Sunday’s race two was not too shabby, either. He followed up his P5 with a very respectable P7. Props to Mr. Smith for reaching another superlative in his professional road racing career.
Let’s Hear It For The Velociraptors
What do you do when you’ve got the number-one plate on your Superbike? Well, you’ve just got to go faster than everybody else. And, that’s exactly what Warhorse HSBK Racing Ducati’s defending Superbike Champion Josh Herrin did on Sunday in Superbike race two, Aboard his Ducati Panigale V4 R, Herrin achieved a highest trap speed of 188.3 miles per hour on the opening circulation of the 19-lap race.
In Stock 1000 competition, OrangeCat Racing’s Andrew Lee went 183.5 miles per hour on lap four of Saturday’s eight-lap literbike race one.
Tyler O’Hara rode his S&S/Indian Motorcycle Challenger to a highest trap speed of 170.0 miles per hour on lap two of Sunday’s Mission King Of The Baggers race two.
Supersport rider Cameron Petersen had a tough weekend at Road Atlanta (more on that in a moment), but he recorded the highest trap speed in MotoAmerica’s middleweight class when he went 168.0 miles per hour on his second lap aboard his
Celtic/Economy Lube+Tire/Warhorse HSBK Ducati Panigale V2 during Sunday’s 18-lap Supersport race two.
And, finally, in the Mission Super Hooligan National Championship, KWR Harley-Davidson’s Cody Wyman achieved a highest trap speed of 161.3 miles per hour, and he did it not once, but twice: on the opening go-around of Saturday’s five-lap race one and once again on the first of Sunday’s six-lap race two.
Karma Chameleon
Adversity certainly plays a major role in road racing, there is absolutely no doubt about that. It’s caused many a hapless rider to ask “Why me?” either quietly and to themselves or out in the open with arms raised to the sky pleading to the cosmos, to the Creator, or to whatever karmic forces seem to be messing with their juju.
Two riders who just seem to be continually getting tested by the fates are Cam Petersen and James Rispoli. How many tipovers, how many bike problems, and how many unfortunate injuries does the exceedingly likeable Cam P. have to sustain before his fortunes take a turn for the better? Already suffering from a host of physical maladies due to crashes, some of which were not his fault, Petersen, who is racing for two different teams on two vastly different bikes and in two different race classes, now reportedly added a shoulder injury to his challenges as a result of another incident that wasn’t caused by himself.
And, yet, Cam P. toughed it out again, somehow, some way. He focused all his energy and courage on Supersport and rode his Celtic/Economy Lube+Tire/Warhorse HSBK Ducati Panigale V2 to an incredible, fourth-place finish in Saturday’s race one, then he followed that up with a fifth-place result in Sunday’s race two, while also achieving the aforementioned highest trap speed in the class. Petersen is proving that you can overcome bad karma through pure guts, determination, and a whole lot of racing talent.
James Rispoli also seems to be currently stuck on the bad side of the yin and yang of life. So far this season, Rispoli has DNFed in three of the four Mission King Of The Baggers races. He also DNFed in both Mission Super Hooligan National Championship races this past weekend. On the bright side, however, Rispoli did notch a fourth-place result, finishing just off the podium in the Road Atlanta event-concluding KOTB race two.
With the Harley-Davidson x Dynojet Factory Racing team heading to their home round at Road America at the end of this month, here’s hoping that JR43 can turn things around at America’s National Park of Speed.
One rider who had been suffering for far too long in some kind of negative-karma, alternate universe was Andrew Lee. We’re certain he didn’t make a pact with some pitchfork-wielding beelzebub in exchange for the two consecutive Stock 1000 Championships he won in 2018 and 2019. It was his obvious talent and racecraft that garnered him those two titles. But, talk about a rider who has paid his dues. The past few years have not been kind to road racer Lee other than the fact that he did land a nugget of a GF in Mallory Dobbs. But, this year, he signed with OrangeCat Racing, a team that really has things figured out. Already highly successful in MotoAmerica for the past couple of years, OrangeCat brought Lee into the fold as a teammate to incumbent team rider Jayson Uribe, who is a long-time friend of Lee and they have raced against each other since they were little kids growing up in NorCal.
Armed with a fast motorcycle prepared by a solid crew, Lee came into Road Atlanta with a new outlook and a promise to reward his team for believing in him. On Saturday morning, Lee earned the pole for the weekend’s two Stock 1000 races and then proceeded to win Saturday afternoon’s race one over his teammate Uribe, who finished second. It was Lee’s first MotoAmerica victory since September 22, 2019, at Barber Motorsports Park. On Sunday, the order flipped, and Lee finished second to Uribe, which makes OrangeCat’s two riders tied at the top of the Stock 1000 Championship with four rounds and eight races left in their season.
That sounds like some really good karma to me.
Falling Down
Road Atlanta was a rough one for quite a few of MotoAmerica’s riders. Along with the aforementioned Cameron Petersen, others who crashed and suffered injuries (thankfully, none of them life-threatening), included CJ LaRoche, Corey Alexander, and Rocco Landers. Landers got caught up in the incident when Kyle Ohnsorg crashed out of Mission King Of The Baggers race two through no fault of his own.
To the above riders, as well as to any others who I didn’t mention, we extend our best wishes for a speedy recovery, and we look forward to seeing you at the next round where your class is scheduled to compete.
What An Adventure For Ventura
It’s been almost exactly two years since Cory Ventura last raced in MotoAmerica. The Californian, who now lives in Missouri, suffered a badly broken left leg in 2023 from a crash at Barber Motorsports Park, and this past weekend, Ventura made it all the way back to the series as the featured rider on the PS Squared Racing team owned and led by MotoAmerica Medical Director Carl Price.
And, to add even more goodness to the feel-good story, Ventura debuted the Aprilia RSV4 1100 in MotoAmerica competition.
After displaying impressive pace in Friday’s Qualifying 1 session, Ventura’s bike had a mechanical issue during Saturday morning’s Qualifying 2. The issue caused Ventura to crash, and he was thankfully unhurt. The same couldn’t be said for the bike, however, which sustained significant damage that could not be repaired, and that led to Ventura being unable to compete in Saturday’s race one.
Ventura’s crew chief Brandon Cole (co-owner of the team with Dr. Price) and lead mechanic William Luce sourced an RSV4 1100 demo bike that had been ridden on the street earlier that day and, like a couple of college kids cramming for their final exams, they pulled an all-nighter transforming the streetbike into a fully race-ready Stock 1000-spec machine.
On Sunday morning, Ventura was able to participate in the Stock 1000 Warm Up session in order to shake down the freshly prepared motorcycle, and then, in the afternoon, he took to the starting grid for Stock 1000 race two. Lapping several seconds faster than he qualified, Ventura was running a pace that would have put him in contention for a top-10 finish. Unfortunately, however, a minor mechanical gremlin forced him to retire from the race.
“Now, we have something to work with,” Ventura said, while reflecting on his weekend.
He and his team are excited to continue developing the RSV4 1100 and carry the momentum from this past weekend into Road America for the next round of the Stock 1000 Championship at the end of this month.
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