Latest news with #RoadAmerica
NBC Sports
3 days ago
- Sport
- NBC Sports
What Superbike riders said after Road America
Hear what riders had to say following Josh Herrin's Road America sweep of the third round of the MotoAmerica Superbikes season.
NBC Sports
3 days ago
- Sport
- NBC Sports
Josh Herrin sweeps Road America, Cameron Beaubier crashes in Race 2
Josh Herrin followed up on his Saturday victory at Road America in Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin, with another Superbike win on Sunday to complete a sweep of the weekend. Herrin led wire-to-wire in Saturday's race on his Ducati despite pressure from Bobby Fong and Cameron Beaubier, but Sunday had a different plotline. Under pressure from Beaubier, Herrin rode off course in the chicane after leading Lap 1 and handed the top spot to the current points leader, but Herrin recovered quickly and was back up front on Lap 4, where he remained until the checkers. 'The guys gave me a perfect bike this weekend,' Herrin said in a news release. 'Like Bobby said, the track didn't have the grip that it had yesterday, but it seems like when the grip is down, our bikes, the V2 and the V4, always seems to be better for us. I ran off in the chicane, and I just knew I had to put in a solid two laps to catch back up to Cam, or my race is over. I was able to do that 9.4, which I was shocked by. I don't know what my best time was this weekend, but I don't think it was anywhere close to that.' Dan Beaver, The decisive moment of the race occurred on Lap 8, when Beaubier laid his bike down in the carousel and retired with the crash damage. The accident effectively erased Beaubier's points lead, which was 23 points ahead of Jake Gagne after two rounds. Third-place Herrin was in even more dire straits at 36 points behind entering Road America, but he left in second with only a two-point gap. 'Like we talked about yesterday, just getting through those first two rounds is important for us,' Herrin said. 'I think for me mentally, I got to get through them. It's like A1 for Supercross. I've just got to do it. Luckily, we had two really good races this weekend. We don't want to catch Cam because of crashes, but that's part of the game. Making mistakes is part of it. You've got to try to minimize them.' For the second consecutive race, Herrin beat Fong to the line, this time by 8.6 seconds. 'I was kind of doing the same thing as yesterday,' Fong said. 'We always try 100 percent, but I felt like the track was a little greasy today. Either that or I just couldn't carry the momentum like I did yesterday. I was actually dumbfounded at the end of the race. I was going pretty slow with the times. ... 'I was a little more disappointed with myself that I couldn't do the same pace. I lost the draft after the first lap and was just kind of a sitting duck. The crew has been working hard. It's cool to get two second-place points. I was a little far down in the points leading up to this round. It's good to move up in the points and to keep the Yamaha on the podium is good.' Richie Escalante improved on his fourth-place finish on Saturday to take the final podium spot despite his Suzuki losing power on the final lap. 'For some reason, this year I haven't had the best feeling with the bike, so I take time every day to feel a little bit better,' Escalante said. 'I think today I was maybe a little bit lucky, to be honest, but it's part of racing. I'm super happy to finish on the podium. In the last lap, I think I had no fuel. So almost did not finished the race. Super happy. I tried to stay close with Bob, but I made a mistake in the chicane. After that, I just maintained my pace.' Fourth-place Benjamin Smith and JD Beach rounded out the top five. This was a career-best finish for Smith. A pair of riders accustomed to riding up front saw their race hope evaporate early as Sean Dylan Kelly and Jake Gagne made contact early in the race. Both finished, but the incident relegated Gagne to eighth and Kelly to 14th, the last bike on the lead lap. Gagne fell from second in the championship standings at the start of the race to fourth. Bobby Fong's back-to-back second-place results elevated him to third in points. Race 2 Results Race 2 Lap Chart Superbike Rider Points
NBC Sports
7 days ago
- Automotive
- NBC Sports
MOTOAMERICA SUPERBIKE RACES TO STREAM LIVE ON PEACOCK AND THE NBC SPORTS NOW FAST CHANNEL THIS SEASON
Peacock Will Stream MotoAmerica's Premier Superbike Class, Beginning with Road America's Two Races IRVINE, CA (May 29, 2025) – MotoAmerica, North America's premier motorcycle road racing series, is pleased to announce that beginning with the next round of its championship at Road America in Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin, May 30-June 1, MotoAmerica's premier Superbike class will stream live on Peacock, NBCUniversal's streaming service, and the NBC Sports NOW Fast Channel. Fans will be able to stream both Superbike races for the remainder of the 2025 season on Peacock and NBC Sports NOW, with expanded access to on-demand and broadcast replays through NBC Sports NOW. MotoAmerica Superbike racing will bring the remaining 16 Superbike races to Peacock subscribers this year, joining other live sports on the platform, including the Olympics and Paralympics, Sunday Night Football, Big Ten Football and Basketball, Notre Dame Football, Premier League, NASCAR, golf, the NBA beginning in 2025-26, the WNBA beginning in 2026, and much more. 'We're thrilled to bring MotoAmerica to an even broader audience,' said MotoAmerica's COO Chuck Aksland. 'Peacock, with nearly 100 million monthly active users, and NBC Sports NOW offer a tremendous platform to showcase our racing series alongside world-class sports. Being part of such a dynamic and respected streaming service not only elevates our visibility but also makes it easier than ever for fans to watch and follow MotoAmerica Superbikes. We're excited to kick off our partnership with NBC Sports at the next round in Wisconsin.' 'MotoAmerica is a great addition to Peacock's expansive and growing portfolio of motorsports properties,' said Matt Grassie, Director, Programming & Rights Management, NBC Sports. 'The premier motorcycle road racing series in the U.S., livestreaming MotoAmerca on Peacock will provide fans nationwide with exhilarating, fast-paced competition.' 2025 NBC SPORTS MOTOAMERICA SCHEDULE LIVE ON PEACOCK ABOUT PEACOCK Peacock's expansive sports programming features live coverage including Sunday Night Football, Olympic and Paralympic Games, Big Ten Football and Basketball, Notre Dame Football, Premier League, NASCAR, golf, the NBA beginning in 2025-26, the WNBA beginning in 2026, La Copa Mundial de la FIFA 2026, BIG EAST basketball, and much more. Peacock also offers daily sports programming on the NBC Sports channel.
Indianapolis Star
13-05-2025
- Automotive
- Indianapolis Star
IndyCar TV ratings for Sonsio Grand Prix take notable dip. What it means for Fox's tenure so far
INDIANAPOLIS — Following a marginally more closely contested IndyCar race on the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course, but one again won by Alex Palou all the same, Fox Sports captured an average audience of just 710,000 for Saturday's Sonsio Grand Prix, the second lowest audience of the year and the lowest the race has seen since at least 2016. This year's race preceding Indianapolis 500 practice week did face stiffer NBA playoff competition than a year ago (Knicks-Celtics this year versus Thunder-Mavericks), along with a PGA Tour tournament that saw year-over-year gains in its own viewership, but it also marks Fox's second IndyCar broadcast that saw a downturn in ratings from a year ago (along with Thermal), along with another race (Barber) that was up significantly over 2024 but relatively flat against other recent broadcasts. Long Beach's audience this spring, though up on 2024 from a strict numbers standpoint (552,000 versus 307,000), marked the historic race's return to a network window after airing on cable in 2024, and this year's audience metrics out-rated only two NBC IndyCar network broadcasts from 2019-2024 — both of which faced NFL competition near the end of the season. On the backs of a mega audience for the St. Pete season opener — 1.417 million, the largest non-Indy 500 IndyCar audience in 14 years — Fox's early tenure as IndyCar's exclusive U.S. broadcast partner still has the network up 15% on last year's average through the same corresponding broadcasts (including Thermal, even though it was a non-points race). But that boost shrinks to just 1% when looking at IndyCar's first five non-Indy 500 network broadcasts in 2024 (excluding Long Beach and including Road America). Year over year, NBC's slate in 2024 is actually up on Fox's in 2025 by taking the average audience of IndyCar's first five points races (i.e. not Thermal in 2024) that aired on network TV (outside the 500), meaning St. Pete, Barber, IMS road course, Road America and Mid-Ohio, versus Fox's first five this year: 946,000 (2024) vs. 863,000 (2025). Given the notable increase in Fox's commercial promotion of the series over the offseason and into this year — including three driver-centric commercials that aired during Fox's Super Bowl coverage — when compared to NBC's approach in recent years, Penske Entertainment officials made clear coming into the 2025 campaign they expected to transition from consistent "single-digit growth" into "rapid growth" with the help of Fox Sports and its enthusiastic Hoosier CEO Eric Shanks. "There's a whole other level of trajectory for IndyCar going forward," Penske Entertainment president and CEO Mark Miles told reporters on the eve of the season opener in St. Pete. Insider: With sparse spring schedule, IndyCar wasted its Super Bowl moment. It's time for results All eyes now focus in on Fox's first Indy 500 broadcast May 25 and the audience it'll be able to capture as it prepares to launch Season 3 of "100 Days to Indy" days before the race on its streaming arm, Fox Nation, along with Fox's increased reach on practice coverage that will air on cable all month (NBC's only ran on streaming), its sizable network qualifying broadcast windows both Saturday and Sunday and its various other Indy 500-related documentary-style programming that it hopes will help create an attention-grabbing runway on the way to the Greatest Spectacle in Racing. Indianapolis 500 2025: Practice, qualifying, Carb Day, Legends Day, race schedule, start time, tickets The TV audience for the Indy 500 hasn't eclipsed 6 million since 2016 (6.01 million), with the high since then coming with Helio Castroneves' historic fourth victory in 2021 (5.63 million). Only four times since the 100th running in 2016 has the race's TV-only audience even surpassed the 5 million mark, including last year's, which averaged 5.02 million, 5.31 million including streaming, an element that Fox doesn't yet have in its arsenal but will in 2026. Since three consecutive years with average TV audiences for the race above 6 million from 2014-16, the 500's TV metrics have been up and down, with a steady two-year dip in 2017 (5.46 million) and 2018 (4.91 million), before a jump back up in 2019 (5.45 million). After the lowest-rated race during the COVID-19-altered 2020 race (3.67 million), Castroneves' win added back nearly 2 million viewers, the following year lost nearly 1 million right back (4.62 million; 4.8 million with streaming in 2022). Drama-filled endings won by Josef Newgarden in the two years since (4.71 million in 2023, 4.92 million including streaming; and 5.02 million in 2024, 5.31 with streaming) gave the broadcast a notable boost.
Fox News
12-05-2025
- Automotive
- Fox News
Don't etch Alex Palou's name on the INDYCAR title trophy just yet
Just how dominant has Alex Palou been at the start of the 2025 INDYCAR season? After four races, he could skip this weekend's race on the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course and still be leading the points. Thanks to his three victories, Palou has a 60-point lead on Christian Lundgaard in the standings. The maximum a driver can earn in a race is 54 points. Drivers 10th and back are more than two races behind Palou That includes Josef Newgarden, who is already 118 points in arrears. With 13 races left in the season, Palou is well on his way to a fourth championship. But don't just hand him the trophy just yet. "I learned that when I was racing Supercars ... you've just got to be there," said Scott McLaughlin, who is fifth in the standings, 91 points behind Palou. "It is all swings and roundabouts. "We'll be strong at places he won't. Just got to capitalize." Drivers will have to hope that Palou's inability to win on an oval continues. Six of the final 13 races are on ovals, starting with the Indianapolis 500 later this month. Other oval races are Gateway, the back-to-back races at Iowa, Milwaukee and the season finale at Nashville. But the drivers will likely need Palou to have more than just a non-winning day. They'll need him to have bad days, too. He enters this weekend's race at the Indianapolis Grand Prix as the defending winner of the event. He'll do the same later this year at Laguna Seca. He has also won at four of the other remaining road courses on the schedule: Detroit, Road America, Mid-Ohio and Portland. The only non-oval he hasn't won at that's left on the schedule is Toronto. McLaughlin gave Palou and his race strategist Barry Wanser all the props for the start of the season. "Alex is one of the best racecar drivers I've ever come across," McLaughlin said. "He's the whole deal. That doesn't mean we can't beat him. ... Everyone has a bad race at some point. "You've got to try and keep knocking on the door." Maybe INDYCAR's new rules for road and street courses, where drivers must use two sets of the primary hard tires and two sets of the alternate soft tires (the previous rule was one set apiece) during a race, could eliminate some of Palou's advantage. He's seemed to capitalize on that strategy this year. Or maybe, with additional pit stops, it will create more comers and goers in the field. But then again, there's no reason to think Palou won't adapt. The biggest challenge will be the ovals. Palou has three podium finishes in a combined 20 starts on the ovals remaining on the schedule. "Everybody knows I've never won on an oval," Palou said. "I plan on changing that this year so you can write a great story." Actually, not winning on an oval could make the stories greater if there is a battle for the championship. After Lundgaard (60 points behind Palou) are Kyle Kirkwood (-69), Pato O'Ward (-88), McLaughlin (-91), Felix Rosenqvist (-91), Scott Dixon (-92), Colton Herta (-97), Will Power (-103) and Alexander Rossi (-114). Can any of them make a run? Lundgaard seems to just keep getting better and better as he thrives in his new Arrow McLaren ride. Kirkwood must avoid having mediocre weekends like the one he had at Barber Motorsports Park last week. O'Ward, who has had a series of disappointments at Indianapolis, could ride the wave of momentum if he can capitalize this year. And McLaughlin has looked like the top Penske driver as far as consistent performance in both qualifying and the race — except for an awful showing at Thermal. Palou, though, is the only one who can have a bad day while still knowing that he can control the battle for the championship. The others can't afford another one, and that's a lot to ask over a 13-race stretch. "I never start a season or go to a race thinking about the championship," Palou said. "Never. My goal and what I enjoy doing is working for that race weekend. "For me, the next race weekend is the most important one. That's all I think about." Bob Pockrass covers NASCAR and INDYCAR for FOX Sports. He has spent decades covering motorsports, including over 30 Daytona 500s, with stints at ESPN, Sporting News, NASCAR Scene magazine and The (Daytona Beach) News-Journal. Follow him on Twitter @bobpockrass.
