Monterey, CA – July 21, 2013 – The Y.E.S./Monster Energy/Graves/Yamaha team couldn’t have asked for a better weekend on the worldwide stage at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca. Cameron Beaubier continued his string of perfect race weekends aboard his #6 YZF-R6 as he earned the pole yesterday in AMA Pro GoPro Daytona SportBike, and then the northern Californian won Sunday’s race in convincing fashion with a gap of nearly three full seconds over the rest of the field. He also earned the bonus point for leading the most laps in the red-flag-shortened race and now has a 56-point lead in the 2013 Championship.
After the initial start, Cameron slotted himself into the lead pack to survey the field–which is the rider’s trademark strategy–he got into the lead and started working on pulling a gap. Unfortunately, the race was red-flagged and had to be restarted for a 5-lap sprint to the finish. At that point, Cameron abandoned his strategy and got the holeshot on the restart where he immediately began to pull away from the pack.
“I pulled a pretty good gap, and then we had a red flag,” Cameron said. “So, on the restart, I knew that I needed to get to the front a lot more quickly. I got the holeshot, and just put my head down till I saw the checkers. Five laps go by quickly here at Laguna, and I was happy that I won.”
In hot pursuit of Cameron during the race was his teammate and rider of the #8 Y.E.S./Monster Energy/Graves/Yamaha Garrett Gerloff. Garrett, who hails from Spring, Texas, finished second to Cameron, and ran an excellent race of his own. This was Garrett’s first-ever race at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca, and he scored his second top-two finish of the season, which includes his second-place finish in March at the Daytona 200.
Garrett said, ”I’m finally back on the podium! We came into this weekend, and everything was going smoothly. I kept improving my laptimes more and more as the weekend went on, and I’m really happy to get my second podium this year.” Garrett is currently in 4th place in the 2013 Championship points standings.
The Y.E.S./Monster Energy/Graves/Yamaha team will be back in action in less than two weeks for Round 6 of the AMA Pro GoPro Daytona SportBike Championship, which takes place on August 2 – 4 at Miller Motorsports Park in Tooele, UT.
