Beaubier gets double Moto win

Twin wins give him 23 career victories|

Cameron Beaubier put together a dream weekend for himself last Saturday and Sunday in the MotoAmerica Championship at Sonoma Raceway. The two-time defending MotoAmerica Superbike Champion swept both Motul Superbike races at his home track for his first double-win of the season.

After storming to victory in Saturday’s Motul Superbike race, Beaubier came back to the track Sunday with aspirations of doing the same thing. And that he did, the Monster Energy/Yamalube/Yamaha Factory Racing-backed Beaubier winning Sunday’s race by 7.2 seconds for the 23rd AMA Superbike win of his career.

“I’m just really happy with how the whole weekend went,” the 25-year-old Beaubier said. “We made a few changes here and there to get a bit more comfortable but I think we made a good step fine tuning the electronics, which we had been struggling with a bit this year. All in all it was a really successful weekend for us. Today’s race was quite a bit tougher than yesterday.”

For the second straight day, Yoshimura Suzuki’s Toni Elias finished second to Beaubier. This time the Motul Superbike Championship points leader got to second place quicker after again starting from ninth on the grid. Once he got to second, the Spaniard was able to chip away a little bit at Beaubier’s lead, but the Yamaha rider responded in kind to pull back away. Elias, with a 70-point lead in the championship, didn’t keep up the fight and faded to finish a tick over seven seconds behind. It was Elias’ 13th podium finish in 14 races.

Elias’ points lead didn’t suffer this weekend as his closest rival coming into Sonoma Raceway failed to finish either race. Roger Hayden was taken out of yesterday’s race by Helmet Sounds/Western Services/Meen Racing’s Josh Herrin on the opening lap. Sunday, Hayden crashed by himself on the third lap, leaving Northern California with no points gained in the two races. Hayden’s bad luck allowed Beaubier to move into second, 70 points behind Elias, 300-230. Hayden is third with 220 points.

Beaubier’s teammate Josh Hayes put himself on the podium for the second straight day, the four-time Superbike Champion finishing third again.

“Today at the beginning of the race it was a little bit cleaner and everybody got through a little bit better so I had some more work to do during the race,” Hayes said. “It took me a little while to get through everybody and I had to pick my spots a little more carefully. I had what felt like a little bit better pace than yesterday and overall felt like I had a little bit better motorcycle. Overall, I felt like it was a more solid day.”

Yamalube/Westby Racing’s Mathew Scholtz finished fourth and with that earned his sixth Bazzaz Superstock 1000 victory of the year, the South African suffering from arm pump but still holding off M4 ECSTAR Suzuki’s Jake Lewis and Quicksilver Latus Motors Kawasaki’s Bobby Fong in the final laps.

Herrin ended up seventh on his Superbike-spec Yamaha R1, the Georgian some 16 seconds behind Fong and three seconds ahead of Brixx Performance’s Sylvain Barrier. Genuine Broaster Chicken Honda’s Jake Gagne and TOBC Racing’s Danny Eslick rounded out the top 10 finishers.

For more results, see motoamerica.com/results

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