MotoAmerica Communications

Anyone who has attended school has lived through mid-terms. It often-times marks the middle of the semester, or term (get it?), or even the middle of the entire school year. Your performance at mid-term offers the chance to reflect on where you are and what you need to do to get to where you want to be at the end. If you’re doing well, it’s a time to celebrate and take a breath. If not, it’s time to roll up the sleeves and get to work.

The same holds true for the 2018 MotoAmerica season as it starts the second half of the season. It’s a time for reflection. A time to see just how we got here.

When you look at the 2018 MotoAmerica Motul Superbike class as we head to round six of 10 at the Utah Motorsports Campus, it already seems like two different series. The first quarter was simply owned by Yoshimura Suzuki’s Toni Elias, the Spaniard winning five of the first six races with only a wet race one at Circuit of The Americas slowing his progress. Even then, he finished fourth, bouncing back the next day with a victory and then he swept both races at VIRginia International Raceway for three wins in a row. Elias didn’t have both hands on the championship, but he had one on it – and it was squeezing hard.

On the other side of this Elias domination sat Cameron Beaubier. The Monster Energy/Yamalube/Yamaha Factory Racing rider couldn’t have had a worse start to his season as he crashed in the series opener at Road Atlanta, remounted and finished ninth. And the crash was Beaubier’s third of the weekend. The following day, in the rain, Beaubier led most of the race but was chased down and beaten by Elias. At the following round in Texas, Beaubier crashed out of the lead in the rain, remounted and finished third. At least he was ahead of fourth-placed Elias. But the following day saw Elias dominate, beating Beaubier to the flag by over 10 seconds.

At VIR, Elias stalked Beaubier until two laps from the end of race one to take his fourth win of the season. The following day he led all of the 23 laps to take his fifth win. Again, Beaubier was second. And still winless on the season. In fact, he hadn’t won a race since August of 2017. Oh… and he was also 35 points behind in the championship. Simply put, the two-time MotoAmerica Superbike Champion was riding shotgun on the struggle bus while his rival was headed for Title Town in a Lambo.