MotoAmerica/Matthew Miles
MotoAmerica Championship Points After Virginia International Raceway
After three rounds of racing, title chases are tight across all five classes of competition
Josh Hayes took his first Motul Superbike race win of the 2017 MotoAmerica Series this past Sunday at VIRginia International Raceway. The 42-year-old Monster Energy/Yamalube/Yamaha Factory Racing rider is now credited with 61 career premier-class victories.
Yoshimura Suzuki’s Toni Elias, who crashed on Sunday and finished second on Sunday, continues to lead the championship with 115 points, 10 more than two-time and defending champ Cameron Beaubier and 11 up on Elias’ teammate, Roger Hayden, who won Race 1.
Fourth on Saturday, first on Sunday, Hayes catapults to fourth overall with 69 points, four more than Bobby Fong. With four wins, the Latus Motors Kawasaki rider leads the Bazzaz Superstock 1000 title chase by 15 points ahead of Yamalube/Westby Racing’s Mathew Scholtz.
Supersport was a two-rider battle between Monster Energy/Yamalube/Y.E.S./Graves Yamaha teammates JD Beach and Garrett Gerloff. The former and current class champions split wins, with Gerloff taking the top spot on Saturday and Beach earning another victory on Sunday.
After three rounds and five races, Gerloff leads Beach in the championship by four points, 106-102. Team H35’s Benny Solis took over third from Valentin Debise, who crashed his M4 ECSTAR Suzuki in both races this past weekend at VIR.
At the opposite end of the age spectrum from Hayes, 15-year-old Jackson Blackmon earned his first career KTM RC Cup podium on Saturday and inaugural win on Sunday at VIR. Margin of victory for the Quarterley Racing/On Track Development pilot was 11.4 seconds.
Blackmon’s teammate, Benjamin Smith, now has just a single-point advantage over fellow team rider Draik Beauchamp—both of whom fell on Sunday—with Dumas closing to within six of Smith. Dumas is third. Blackmon, who missed the opening round of the KTM series at Road Atlanta with a wrist injury, is fourth overall.
