Strack Racing’s Mathew Scholtz wrapped up the 2025 Motovation Supersport Championship in style at New Jersey Motorsports Park, with the South African dominating Saturday’s race one and playing no part in the battle for second behind him.
With Scholtz having rear-tire issues in Q2, the race was shortened from 19 to 15 laps for safety reasons. Those same tire issues reared their ugly head in the race, with others having problems that ultimately forced race officials to red-flag the race after 12 laps.
On Saturday afternoon, MotoAmerica’s Race Direction issued a bulletin regarding Sunday’s Supersport race.
“Following today’s Supersport race, Dunlop and MotoAmerica are removing the following rear specs from the rider allocation: Sportmax Slick 180/60R17 R4 Soft Sportmax Slick 180/60R17 R6 Med. With immediate effect the only rear spec (tire) available will be: 180/65R17 R7 Med+. The front-tire allocation has not been modified.
“The warm-up (session) has been extended to 25 minutes, and no tire stickers will be required for front or rear tires. The front-tire allocation has not been modified. Each Supersport competitor will receive one FOC (free of charge) rear tire for use in morning warm up. Race 2 will be 19 laps as scheduled.”
The win was Scholtz’ 10th on the season, and it earned him his second successive Supersport title. In his two championship seasons, Scholtz has tasted victory in 18 of the 36 MotoAmerica Supersport races.
Second place was a battle royale, with Rahal Ducati Moto w/XPEL’s PJ Jacobsen, Strack Racing’s Blake Davis, Vision Wheel M4 ECSTAR Suzuki’s Tyler Scott, and Celtic/Economy Lube+Tire/Warhorse HSBK Ducati’s Cameron Petersen all in the mix.
Jacobsen was the first to go when his rear tire failed, forcing the New Yorker to pull off and leaving the other three to go at it.
Then everything changed again as the race was red flagged with three laps to go, with Scholtz cruising out front and his crew pleading with him to slow down. On the cool-down lap, the two-time champion stopped to give his championship rival Jacobsen a ride back to the paddock.
Second place went to Davis over Petersen and Scott, with Jacobsen’s teammate Kayla Yaakov rounding out the top five.
In the title chase, Scholtz’ 358 points give him an uncatchable 46-point lead over Jacobsen, who in turn is 62 points ahead of Davis despite not finishing on Saturday. Petersen moves to fourth with 10 more points than Scott, who rounds out the top five with his 191 points going into Sunday’s season finale.
“I kind of wanted to go out there and run my own pace for the first couple laps,” Scholtz said. “I think I did a 21.5, 21.7, and I felt pretty comfortable there. I think if PJ (Jacobsen) started pressuring me, I could have maybe dropped two or three tenths. The wind had definitely come up there, and the rear tire was kind of spinning a little bit more. We did bump the pressure up from the morning qualifying because we just saw that the tire delaminated. So, we kind of had that worry. But overall, once I kind of saw PJ on the side of the track, my team wasn’t even showing me lap times or the gap, they were just telling me to slow down. I kind of just chilled out a little bit. I think it was four laps to go and they red-flagged it. I kind of knew that I had clinched the championship, but you’re always worried that they’re going to send you back out there. Overall, the (Yamaha) R9 has been absolutely ripping this whole year. I would definitely say that it’s the best bike out there on the grid. Blake (Davis) was in second, so I knew that he was going to get his elbows out for me. Tomorrow, I know that he is going to pick up the pace, and Cam (Petersen) will too. They’ll definitely be there. We’re just going to have to see if they’re going to make us run a harder compound tire, after what happened to PJ, I’m guessing. Overall, it’s been a brilliant two years for me dropping down to the Supersport class, riding for the Strack team. Like I said on the podium, I don’t know what 2026 has in store for me yet. Obviously, we’re talking about the Superbike class, but it’s all down to budget and everything else. Whatever those guys want, I’ll be there, whether it’s Junior Cup,
Twins, Superbike, whatever. Those guys are awesome. They treat me well. They treat me like family and my wife. I’m very, very happy over there.”
SC-Project Twins Cup – Chapin Stops The Streak
Alessandro Di Mario came into New Jersey Motorsports Park with the 2025 SC-Project Twins Cup Championship in hand, and with a seven-race win streak. Matthew Chapin came into the final round of the season confident of stopping that streak. And he did just that – by a paper-thin .040 of a second.
RevZilla/Motul/Vance & Hines Suzuki’s Chapin and Robem Engineering’s Di Mario battled throughout the race with Chapin taking the lead for good with four laps to go. He held that lead despite Di Mario nipping at his heels to the bitter end.
Di Mario’s Robem teammate Hank Vossberg recovered from a tough few early laps to finish third, some six seconds behind the lead duo and the same margin ahead of fourth-placed Isaac Woodworth on his Karns/TST Industries Suzuki GSX-8R. Brown Town Racing’s Chase Brown rounded out the top five.
The win was Chapin’s third of the season and his first since he swept both races at Daytona International Speedway in March. It also helped solidify his runner-up spot in the championship. He now leads Bad Boys Racing’s Avery Dreher by 30 points, with Avery suffering a mechanical issue that took him out of the battle for third early in the race.
Vossberg’s lonely third-place finish moved him to within three points of Dreher heading into tomorrow’s finale.
“That one felt absolutely amazing,” Chapin said. “I feel like I worked as hard as I possibly could for that. I had this thing on the limit the whole time. I had a little bit of a moment in the first lap, but I think that the team finally found a positive setting that we’re at. The bike was handling great all weekend. I just got to thank all my sponsors, all my friends and family for coming out.
Chapin wasn’t nervous about being passed on the run to the finish line.
“I knew that I had the mile per hour on this thing, the top speed,” the Marylander said. “I knew that I had it at the last corner. I really wasn’t too worried if I was going to lead or not on the last lap out of the last corner, because I felt like I could draft him. I kept trying to chip away at Alessandro (Di Mario), but it was really hard to close that initial gap. Once I got it closed, it wasn’t too hard to stay there, but that race was awesome. That was probably the race of my life.”
Mission King Of The Baggers – Gillim Leads The Way
It’s not every day that a Mission King Of The Baggers race ends without a factory rider from either Harley-Davidson or Indian Motorcycle on the podium. On Saturday, that’s exactly what happened with RevZilla/Motul/Vance & Hines Harley-Davidson’s Hayden Gillim beating SDI Racing’s Cameron Petersen and Gillim’s teammate Rocco Landers.
A different kind of podium lockout.
Gillim and Petersen battled for the lead from the get-go, with Gillim at the front but under constant pressure from the South African. It came down to the final lap with Gillim surviving near catastrophe in the final corner when his Road Glide was tied in knots on the run to the flag.
At the finish line, it was Gillim by .229 of a second over Petersen.
Landers, meanwhile, joined Gillim and Petersen as the only three to turn laps in the 1:22s, but he couldn’t quite get close enough to latch on to the lead pair. He finished third, 3.7 seconds behind Gillim and 3.2 seconds ahead of Harley-Davidson x Dynojet Factory Racing’s newly crowned King Of The Baggers Champion, Kyle Wyman.
S&S/Indian Motorcycle’s Loris Baz was fifth, less than a second ahead of Wyman’s teammate James Rispoli.
Notable among the non-finishers was Harley-Davidson x Dynojet Factory Racing’s Bradley Smith, with the Brit escaping uninjured from a scary crash on the opening lap.
“Honestly, with like three to go or something, the bike was doing some weird kind of maintenance throttle in these long corners,” Gillim said. “The thing would all of a sudden cut out, like just have a little spurt. A couple times it made me kind of fall in on the bike. It hadn’t done it in the last corner yet until that last lap, whenever I was really needing a good run. I looked back, I think, with two to go. With those little things happening, I was just figuring Cam (Petersen) was going to come by. These things are really hard to pass on. Once I kind of knew that he was right there, and it had happened a couple times already, I thought, ‘if I can just put the bike in the right spot, you can make an almost impossible pass as long as you get a good run onto the front straight.’ At that point, that was all I was trying to do, was just block in the spots that I needed to block in. It was really good. So far, the last couple weekends, Saturdays have been really good for me. Sundays not so much. We’ll see if we can change that tomorrow. We’re in New Jersey. The weather… Like right now, it’s raining outside. It’s a constant factor. We’ll see what we got tomorrow, see what the weather does, see how everybody goes in the morning. It’s nice for the RevZilla/Motul Vance & Hines guys to finally after… honestly all three of us have been in the same boat for the first part of the season. Everything was really, really tough, and these last couple races everybody has come on really strong. It’s just really good for the class because there’s not a single factory bike up here right now. It’s pretty good.”
Parts Unlimited Talent Cup By Motul – Vossberg Splish Splashes To Win
Rain hit the Millville area when the Parts Unlimited Talent Cup By Motul was ready to start, and the youngsters were given a “wet familiarization” session to get a feel for the conditions.
Early on in the race, it looked like a cakewalk for the fast-starting Bodie Paige on the Jones Honda Krämer APX-350 MA, but the Australian crashed out and appeared to have suffered an injured left arm.
From there it was all Tytlers Cycle Racing’s Hank Vossberg, but it wasn’t without a near-miss of his own as the Wisconsinite came oh so close to a highside. The teenager saved the near-crash and rode on to victory, his fourth of the season.
Yamaha BLU CRU Estenson Racing’s Sam Drane got the better of Warhorse Ducati/American Racing’s Derek Sanchez with the Dominican youngster earning his first Talent Cup podium.
Bettencourt Racing’s Nathan Bettencourt and Royalty Racing’s Carson King rounded out the top five. Team Roberts’ Kody Kopp was a few seconds behind in sixth and well ahead of seventh-placed Ian Fraley on the Real Steel Honda entry.
“It was definitely a wild ride there,” Vossberg said of his near crash. “I knew that was one of the places I’d have to think about while I was out there and I just kind of got in the zone. I just had to remind myself that you’re racing in the rain, and you got to take it easy. I can’t give it up to the team enough for giving me such a great bike. I have to dedicate this race to Ross Olson. He was such a great person, and he meant a lot to the racing community, and it was such a bad thing to lose him. Just want to give it up to him.”
