Paul Carruthers

Garrett Gerloff’s fifth win of the season in Supersport was equally as impressive as Cameron Beaubier was in the Motul Superbike class, the Monster Energy/Yamalube/Y.E.S./Graves Yamaha rider beating his teammate JD Beach by 6.2 seconds after also dominating every session in practice and qualifying.

Gerloff took off from the start and was never headed, though Beach kept him honest in the opening laps. With Gerloff gone at the front, Beach found himself with his hands full in the closing laps as M4 ECSTAR Suzuki’s Valentin Debise closed in. At the finish Beach was just .4 of a second ahead of the Frenchman.

With his fifth win of the season, Gerloff opens up a nine-point lead on Beach heading into tomorrow’s second race in the class. Debise, meanwhile, moved into a tie for third in the series standing with Team H35 Honda’s Benny Solis, the CBR600RR rider finishing fourth today.

  Good day 👌🏼 #Repost @motoamerica (@get_repost) ・・・ One wheeled celebration courtesy of Garrett Gerloff. The defending champ boasted a wire-to-wire victory in today's Supersport Race 1 at Sonoma Raceway. #MotoAmerica #BikesAreBack A post shared by Garrett Gerloff (@garrettgerloff) on Aug 12, 2017 at 10:19pm PDT

“Me and my team talked a lot about what we wanted to do for this round so as soon as the bike came off the truck we were on the right page and just working to make things a little more comfortable and improve the pace,” Gerloff said. “I’ve got some things to work on for tomorrow, not so much with the bike, but with me and being more consistent. I’m still happy to be up here on the podium again and I just want to keep having fun and having good races. I’m ready for tomorrow and can’t thank the team and MotoAmerica enough. It’s awesome to see all the people and fans out here.”

The Superstock 600 class win went to Tuned Racing’s Braeden Ortt, the Canadian finishing fifth overall and holding off a tightly knit group of five behind him in winning for the first time in the class. Ortt topped Superstock 600 points leader Jason Aguilar and his Riderz Law/Aguilar Racing Yamaha, Palmetto Motorsports Team New Zealand’s Shane Richardson, Team MG55’s Michael Gilbert and Deion Campbell Racing’s Deion Campbell. Jayson Uribe rounded out the top 10 on his Supersport-spec Rickdiculous Racing Yamaha.

Aguilar further increased his championship lead over Gilbert, 180-152. Connor Blevins is third in the series standings.

RESULTS

Supersport

1. Garrett Gerloff, New Waverly, Texas, Yamaha
2. JD Beach, Owensboro, Ky., Yamaha
3. Valentin Debise, Albi, France, Suzuki
4. Benny Solis, North Hollywood, Calif., Honda
5. Braeden Ortt, Calgary, Alberta, Canada, Yamaha
6. Jason Aguilar, Placentia, Calif., Yamaha
7. Shane Richardson, Wellington, New Zealand, Kawasaki
8. Michael Gilbert, Santa Ana, Calif., Yamaha
9. Deion Campbell, San Jose, Calif., Yamaha
10. Jayson Uribe, Napa, Calif., Yamaha