JD Beach Takes Fifth Straight Win In Utah
Yamaha Rider Wins His Fourth Of The Season To Take Over Points Lead
Paul Carruthers
JD Beach came into Utah riding a four-race win streak on the fast and flowing Utah Motorsports Campus racetrack. Make that a five-race win streak after Beach and his Monster Energy/Yamalube/Y.E.S./Graves Motorsports Yamaha R6 won his fourth Supersport race of the season and his fifth in a row in Utah. The win also gave the 2015 MotoAmerica Supersport Champion the points lead for the first time in the 2017 series.
Beach won this one with two very fast opening laps while his teammate Garrett Gerloff struggled to find a way around M4 ECSTAR Suzuki’s Valentin Debise. After two laps, Beach led Gerloff by 2.1 seconds and that gap would hold steady until the closing laps when Gerloff gained ground in traffic. At the finish line it was Beach by 1.060 seconds. Debise, meanwhile, faded to third place and was 24.128 seconds behind at the finish.
“I kind of just went into the race with the same plan I always do and tried to get a good start,” Beach said. “I pushed the first few laps and we had some really good pace, but I definitely used up my tires a lot because towards the end of the race the bikes started to move a lot. I think I lapped five or six guys and I didn’t even see a blue flag (requiring lapped riders to move out of the way) until the last rider I lapped. That kind of threw off my rhythm a little bit towards the end of the race, but we’ve got some really good notes for tomorrow and we need to make some improvements so we can stay in front of Garrett (Gerloff) and (Valentin) Debise. I hope we can get back up there tomorrow and get another win.”
Aguilar Racing Yamaha’s Jason Aguilar finished sixth overall, but that was good enough to give him his first career MotoAmerica victory in the Superstock 600 class. The win also moved Aguilar to within two points of series points leader Connor Blevins, the Excel Machine Racing Kawasaki rider finishing third today.
“It was a really good race,” Aguilar said. “We made a lot changes to the bike before the race and I actually struggled quite a bit the first couple laps. I was a little bit worried, honestly, I thought I made the wrong decision, but I ended up coming (on) good. We ran really good lap times that were a second faster than where we were in qualifying, so I’m happy with it. We’ve got to go back to the drawing board and make a little more happen tomorrow because the other guys are going to be right there.”
Put the ole #96 on top of the box today with a new class track record as well. Got another race tomorrow it'll be tough ✊🏻✊🏻✊🏻 @gravesport @solarmax_tech @taylormaderacing @torcousa @riderzlaw @galferusa @flashtune @superlitesprockets @yamahamotorusa @motionpro @ssgear @araiamericas @ridedunlop @speedangleau @rfagraphics @sbkpaint @efsignscom @motoamerica @beinmotor A post shared by Jason Aguilar (@jasonaguilar196) on Jun 24, 2017 at 7:59pm PDT
Second in the Superstock 600 class went to Team MG55’s Michael Gilbert, the Californian who led the series prior to Road America now just six points behind Blevins in the title chase.
Palmetto Motorsports Team New Zealand’s Shane Richardson and M4 medAge Suzuki’s Nick McFadden finished fourth and fifth in class, respectively.