MotoAmerica Press Office

Picture perfect weather and fast lap times were the story of Day 1 at the Utah Motorsports Campus, the site of Round 5 of the 2017 MotoAmerica Series. At the end of the day it was Yoshimura Suzuki's Toni Elias on top of the Motul Superbike class, with the Spaniard lapping at a best of 1:49.811 to edge out his teammate Roger Hayden. Reigning champion Cameron Beaubier rounded out the top three aboard his Monster Energy/Yamalube/Yamaha Factory Racing bike, rebounding from a crash in the opening practice.

1. Toni Elias, Yoshimura Suzuki Factory Racing (1:49.811)

“This  morning  I  [had]  been  fast,  but  I  had  some  problems.  We  tried to  solve  it  this afternoon [and] we did a great job to improve, but some matters must still be [improved]. It’s  necessary  to  do  so  for  tomorrow  because  these  guys  [my  competitors]  are  tough and never stop working. For sure we will be there [up front], I know, but I have to consult with  my  team  to  find  exactly  what  is  the  point.  We  will  see  what  could  be  the  best solution, and if we can find the solution easy or [if] we’ll take more time. I proved a lot this  afternoon,  and  also  in  the  last  moment  I  improved  a  lot,  the  traction,  but  we  [still] need more traction. I feel we can improve more [and] and need to improve more if we want to make a solid race. But I’m very happy. My team is working really good. We are working with things very clever and I’m confident. This is one of my favorite tracks and I hope tomorrow means something, but we will see.”

2. Roger Hayden, Yoshimura Suzuki Factory Racing (1:50.379)

“Not too bad [a day]. I struggled a little bit early today, but I seemed to come around at the  end.  The  bike  just  keeps  getting  better  and  better,  and  we  tried  some  things  this morning  that  we  hadn’t  tried  before  and  some  of  it  helped,  some  of  it  didn’t.  This afternoon we felt pretty good. We’re getting better and better, but I think we need to find a couple tenths a lap. Toni [Elias] I think has a couple tenths on us, so we’ve got to find a little bit in the morning. I’m feeling confident and I really like this track.”

3. Cameron Beaubier, Monster Energy/Yamalube/Yamaha Factory Racing (1:50.469)

“[Third  place] is  not  great,  honestly.  The  crash  this  morning  was  just  a  mistake  on  my part. I got into the corner a little hot, and still tried to get it back on line. It’s a bummer because  my  bike  took  a  good  flip,  and  ruined  the  bike  pretty  good.  So  in  the  second practice  I  struggled  to  get  down  to  pace  [of  the  leaders].  We’re  going  to  make  some changes  tonight  and  scratch  our  heads.  We’ll  figure  out  what  we’ll  come  up  with  and see how tomorrow goes.”

Supersport

In Supersport action it was M4 ECSTAR Suzuki's Valentin Debise leading the way over championship points leader Garrett Gerloff by just .046 of a second. Gerloff's Monster Energy/Yamalube/Y.E.S./Graves Yamaha teammate JD Beach ended up third, just 0.122 of a second behind.

1. Valentin Debise, M4 ECSTAR Suzuki (1:53.584)

“I think now it’s working well because it worked well at the Pittsburgh test. I was happy about the bike, but last weekend at Road America we struggled a lot and we figured out why now, because my inside fork was bent. It’s why my bike was so difficult to ride and I was  so  slow,  so  now  everything  is  back  to  normal.  I  just  make  my normal  work  and honestly  we  didn’t tough  that  much  [on]  the  bike,  it  was  more  about  me  changing  myriding  style  a  little  bit.  That’s  all.  [Now]  it’s  just  about  pushing  and  making  some  small adjustments,  working  with  my  coach  to  adjust  my  riding  style.  I’m  very  glad  that everything is back to normal and I can fight again with the Yamaha boys."

Action will continue tomorrow with final qualifying for Supersport and Superpole for the Motul Superbike class, with those two classes and the KTM RC Cup all scheduled for their first of two races as well. Race two in each class will be held on Sunday.