MotoAmerica

Cameron Beaubier came away with the fastest Motul Superbike lap of Day 1 as the Honda Superbike Championship of the Monterey Peninsula got rolling today under sunny skies and warm temperatures. The Monster Energy/Yamalube/Yamaha factory rider lapped the 2.23-mile Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca in 1:24.919 and was the only rider to crack the 1:25 barrier.

Beaubier’s teammate Josh Hayes and Yoshimura Suzuki’s Toni Elias ended the day with the exact same lap time – a 1:25.016 – on the exact same lap, their 16th, to finish second and third.

Yoshimura Suzuki’s Roger Hayden ended the day fourth, just 0.222 of a second behind Beaubier and 0.4 of a second faster than the fastest of the Bazzaz Superstock 1000 class, M4 ECSTAR Suzuki’s Jake Lewis.

1. Cameron Beaubier, Monster Energy/Yamalube/Yamaha Factory Racing (1:24.919) “Definitely a better start than where [Utah] was. I feel good [and] my bike feels good. We still have a couple changes to make to get where we want to be, but it’s nice to be leading after Friday. I haven’t led after Friday for a few races. It feels good. I’m ready to go racing tomorrow.”

2. Josh Hayes, Monster Energy/Yamalube/Yamaha Factory Racing (1:25.016) “It was a pretty good day. I don’t think the lap times are outrageously good, but my position on the [results] board is all right. I think everybody is in kind of the same boat. We’re all going about this [preparation] fast and we’re all having the same issues. I believe whenever the [World  Superbike] rubber gets put on the track we struggle. It’s incompatible with our rubber, so when we ride on top of what they’ve ridden on we tend to struggle with grip. We’re having some issues with a few things, and we made some changes this afternoon to try and fix it, but I don’t think we did. We’ll go back to the drawing board and look at what we can do for tomorrow.

“We’re a little bit more limited for track  time, so getting a clean lap has been the only thing that’s done me good and got me up on the board. It’s been hard to find just one good, clean lap. If you see an opportunity you try to take advantage of it, [then] if you make a little mistake you blow it. So it’s just hard to find a good clean lap.”

3. Toni Elias, Yoshimura Suzuki Factory Racing (1:25.016) “Not much [of a good day], because today was a day to put our ideas on the table and try. That’s why it’s Friday, no? Nothing works for today, but this gives us big direction for tomorrow. I never made a perfect lap; I found a lot of traffic. Although everything I say is negative, at the end it is so positive because everything from today will work for tomorrow.”

Supersport/STK600

In the Supersport class, Garrett Gerloff led both sessions over his Monster/Yamalube/Y.E.S./Graves Yamaha teammate JD Beach. M4 ECSTAR Suzuki’s Valentin Debise was third, just over a second slower than Gerloff.

KTM RC Cup

Cory Ventura rode his CSV Moto KTM RC 390 to the fastest time in KTM RC Cup Qualifying 1, the Californian half a second faster than Quarterley Racing/On Track Development’s Benjamin Smith. Smith’s teammate Jackson Blackmon was third fastest on day one.