Bobby Fong wins twice at Laguna Seca, Josh Herrin once
The winner of both Sunday races, Bobby Fong, closed the gap on Beaubier by 28 points to make this a three-way battle for the championship. Herrin currently holds a 31-point advantage over Beaubier, with Fong another six points behind.
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Herrin and Fong each swept the podium with a worst result of second to make for near-perfect weekends.
In Race 1, Herrin extended his points lead to 28 over Beaubier when the early-season leader crashed on Lap 7. Herrin and Beaubier swapped the lead three times in the first half of the race after Beaubier had the early advantage from the pole. After three laps of racing, Herrin secured the top spot for another three trips around the track, Beaubier retook the lead on Lap 6, and then tucked his front wheel on the next circuit.
"Lately I've been approaching the races different," Herrin said. "(Beaubier has) been my main competition for the last two years, and I want to kind of find out what I need to do to try to beat him. Coming into this race, I knew it was going to be hard, but I know that he's all or nothing. I don't know if it's his bike or if it's just the way that he is, but he's got to be pushing to the limit the whole time.
"He can't slow the pace down and then go back. He's got to be out there charging from the back or charging from the front. My goal was to just disrupt him a little bit, slow the pace down, throw him off his game a little bit. I knew he'd come back around and try to go hard. That's when I was counting on the mistakes. As soon as he made the pass, he made the mistake. If you can't beat him straight up, you got to figure out how to beat him mentally."
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Falling back to 14th, Beaubier steadily rose through the ranks and salvaged a sixth-place finish on Saturday. Herrin led the final 14 laps, but was unable to shake Fong, who was a mere 0.367 seconds behind him at the checkered flag.
"Coming into this track, this track has always treated me pretty well," Beaubier reflected after Race 3. "I've had some good wins here in the past. Had a lot of success. It's one of my favorite tracks in the world. So, coming here and getting my butt kicked like we did, it sucks."
For the moment, however, the momentum belonged to Herrin.
"Sometimes you've just got to play that mental warfare and try something a little bit different," Herrin continued. "Instead of me just taking all the risk and blowing wide all the time, I'm just trying to be smart. It comes with age."
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Fong learned a few lessons on Saturday as well. And after finishing on Herrin's back wheel in the first contest, changing track conditions played in Fong's favor.
"(Herrin) was better than me yesterday; he was right," Fong said after Race 2. "Today's race was. … It was slippery yesterday too, but it was so slippery out there, and this Yamaha likes to roll, so that's kind of using that in our advantage a little bit. This next one, I'm sure it's going to even be a little bit more slippery with the temperatures going up. So, it's definitely going to be who has a better tire. Not managing the tire, but just who can deal with the sliding the least amount out there."
Fong dealt with the warmer conditions of Race 3 best.
"Honestly, in the first few laps, I thought it was going to be a long race," Fong said after Race 3. "I had a few moments in the first few laps, and then battling with these guys, I thought we were just going to scrap the whole race. It was fun for a little bit. (Sean Dylan Kelly) got his nose in there, so it was good. Then I saw that Herrin kind of caught on to some of the strong sections of the track that I was doing, so he kind of learned and picked it up and gathered a few tenths in some of those sectors."
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Battling the effects of a crash on Friday, Herrin tried to convince himself he would be content with a solid points day. Once a rider feels the handling and speed of race conditions, however, that resolve is hard to maintain.
"The second race (on Sunday), I just told myself, we got a first and a second," Herrin said. "If I can just get a third right now, we've got a good points haul for the weekend. Just take it. Be happy. Then my mind just kind of switched. I got into the mode that I was in and just wanted to battle it up and see what happened."
Herrin's pair of second-place results to Fong had another silver lining; he finished ahead of Beaubier in all three Laguna Seca races to pad his lead while losing only a handful of points to Fong.
MotoAmerica's Superbikes return to action August 1 - 3 at Virginia International Raceway in Alton, Virginia.
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Race 2
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Race 3
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