Superbike races don’t get much better than the one that took place on Saturday in Texas, with the top three in the championship exchanging blows for all 12 laps of the 3.40-mile Circuit of The Americas.
After 12 frantic laps, the top three crossed the line with less than half a second separating race winner Josh Herrin from third-placed Bobby Fong, with Cameron Beaubier sandwiched between the two. To make things even more interesting, the top three were on different brands of motorcycles: Ducati (Herrin), BMW (Beaubier), and Yamaha (Fong).
With the 2026 MotoAmerica Superbike Championship reaching a boiling point with just four races left in the championship, including tomorrow’s race two at COTA, only 18 points separate the top three in the chase for the crown.
Of the three, Herrin needed the win the most as he came into the COTA round trailing Fong by 27 points. That deficit is now down to 18. With his second-place finish today, Beaubier also gained on Fong. The five-time MotoAmerica Superbike Champion is now just 13 points behind.
Warhorse HSBK Racing Ducati’s Herrin did most of the leading. Tytlers Cycle Racing’s Beaubier had a few shots at leading, but couldn’t make it stick, and Attack Performance Progressive Yamaha Racing’s Fong never led, but was always in earshot of whoever was leading.
It came down to the final couple of corners with Fong trying a desperation pass that didn’t work on Beaubier, who also made a last-ditch effort that saw him run off track, but he still had enough of a gap to beat Fong for second – by .031 of a second.
Late in the race it was Vision Wheel M4 ECSTAR Suzuki’s Richie Escalante who was making the most noise as he was fourth and making inroads to the top three at a clip of half a second a lap. On the final lap, however, it all came apart as Escalante crashed out.
That left Real Steel Honda’s Hayden Gillim in fourth place, some four seconds ahead of Vision Wheel M4 ECSTAR Suzuki’s Sean Dylan Kelly.
Gillim’s teammate JD Beach ended up sixth, which also gave him the victory and the Superbike Cup Championship – for those racing Stock 1000-spec motorcycles in the Superbike class.
FLOLAW’s Benjamin Smith was seventh with Jones Honda’s Ashton Yates eighth. Aftercare Scheibe Racing’s Danilo Lewis was ninth with Fong’s teammate Jake Gagne remounting and rounding out the top 10. Gagne was battling in the lead group when he crashed on the fifth lap.
Superbike Unlimited Racing’s Max Stauffer was 11th, with the Australian making his MotoAmerica debut this weekend at COTA.
Superbike Race 1
- Josh Herrin (Ducati)
- Cameron Beaubier (BMW)
- Bobby Fong (Yamaha)
- Hayden Gillim (Honda)
- Sean Dylan Kelly (Suzuki)
- JD Beach (Honda)
- Benjamin Smith (Yamaha)
- Ashton Yates (Honda)
- Danilo Lewis (BMW)’
- Jake Gagne (Yamaha)
Quotes
Bobby Fong – Third Place
“I hate to do stuff like that, really,” Fong said of his desperation attempt at passing Beaubier. “He’s a good buddy of mine. I know he’s going to return the favor soon. It does suck, but I had to go for it. I knew Richie (Escalante) was coming behind me. That’s the thing. I didn’t know how close he was. I didn’t know he crashed. I could see on my pit board that he was literally catching us half a second a lap. So, I’m like, ‘I need to go.’ But I know once I get in a battle with them it’s going to slow the overall pace up, and then it will be four dudes fighting for the win. So, I didn’t really know what to do. But I knew I had to do something at the last two turns because I knew Richie was going to go for the podium for sure. But these two dudes rode great. I’m happy to be close to them at this track for sure. It was a long, hot one. I know they’re injured. I’m looking forward to New Jersey, for sure.”
Cameron Beaubier – Second Place
“Honestly, I was riding behind (Josh) Herrin and I felt like I had a little pace, but then when I did get up front I was starting to push the front around and slide quite a bit. I think the track was just hot and greasy. Honestly, bummed with the second (place). We need to make some points up. At least we made a couple back on Bob (Fong). Josh (Herrin) rode a great race. I tried to do something kind of last minute in the last corner and he scraped me up, which was a good move. I’m glad we’ve got tomorrow to try again. Getting to the wrist thing, I’ve had a pretty bad week. Crashed my bicycle, like I told you, on Saturday last week. Was trying to keep it quiet, but you can’t keep much quiet around the pits. I’m just really happy with my team. Big thanks to them for getting me comfortable on the bike. We had to change the seating position up and the bars a little bit just to get me through the weekend. Honestly, I’m happy that I’m even racing because Tuesday was a different story. I was kind of scratching my head if I’d be able to ride or not. Thanks to Dr. Price for helping me out this weekend also. Also Dr. Brian. I said some stuff to him, and he got in touch with Dr. Price and told me what I needed to do for the weekend, so thanks to those guys. On to tomorrow.”
Josh Herrin – Winner
“I told my guys, best-case scenario, obviously is Cam (Beaubier) getting second and Bobby (Fong) getting third because it allows me to gain some points on Bobby. I was in a position this year that was different than a lot of times. I guess I was in it last year too, but I let it get to me a little bit too much this year. Just sometimes where I could have taken some risk to try to get a win, I just settled instead. Not to say I would have got the win, but I would have tried a little bit harder. But it was just kind of like, ‘We’re safe.’ I think it just got to my head, which is weird because it hasn’t in the past. I don’t know. I’m just using that. I’m hoping that’s what it was, because going into this weekend, I just wanted to think about trying to get wins again and not care about the championship and kind of play into that underdog role and just try to attack. Just try to have fun in practice, qualifying, race. Just have fun and go out there, screw around. It seemed to work. Today we made a big gamble, and we went with the (Dunlop) R7, which obviously we won but it was super risky. In that race, obviously, you know that the pace was not the best. I was just trying to hold them off as much as I could. I honestly thought they were going to come by and just fly by. When Cam came by, I just threw the kitchen sink at him to try to get it and was able to get that lap time. I think tomorrow the R5 will help us out a little bit and especially with how greasy it is. So, it was a crazy last couple weeks. I was pretty down in the dumps, like I talked to you about. I knew that I threw it away, because all I needed to do was just go get some points on the weekends where I wasn’t feeling like I could get a win, and instead I just went out and pushed harder than maybe I should have and just made some mistakes. Just trying to claw my way back as much as I can and, hopefully, we can be in it at the end.”
