Reigning American SuperBike Champion Josh Hayes continues to set the bar in AMA Pro Road Racing’s premier class. Earlier this month during an official two-day test at Miller Motorsports Park in Tooele, Utah, the Monster Energy Graves Yamaha rider led seven of the eight timed sessions and laid down the fastest lap, a 1:50.333, around the 15-turn, 3.048-mile “Outer Course.” Of the 21 SuperBike riders who participated in the test, only Rockstar Makita Suzuki’s Blake Young—a double race winner at Daytona—was able to circulate within the same second.
Hayes wasn’t the only newsmaker at Miller. JD Beach, fourth at Daytona in the tire-trouble-shortened 200, made his SuperBike debut on the Team Cycle World Attack Performance Kawasaki ZX-10R. This is the same motorcycle that veteran Eric Bostrom raced to an eighth-place finish at the season opener (“Road to Daytona,” Cycle World, June, 2011). Beach was credited with 119 laps, the quickest being a 1:52.386, good for 12th overall.
What happened to Bostrom? In the weeks since Daytona, the 34-year-old Californian, fourth on the AMA’s all-time win list, decided to stop racing. Impressed by Beach’s speed and mature riding at Daytona, Attack Performance’s Richard Stanboli lobbied AMA officials to let the 19-year-old former Red Bull MotoGP Rookies Cup champion try his hand on the team’s SuperBike at the Miller test. Upon receiving an official stamp of approval from AMA Pro Racing COO David Atlas, Stanboli reached into his own pocket to pave the way to Utah. Kawasaki chipped in for flights, rental cars and hotel rooms.
According to the current AMA Pro Road Racing rulebook, to be eligible for a SuperBike license, a rider must have either held a professional SuperBike- or Daytona SportBike-level license for a minimum of one full year or earned 100 or more points in a given Daytona SportBike season. Beach has not met either criteria, but AMA Pro Racing “reserves the right to request and evaluate additional information, results and data to then determine inclusion or exclusion in any given class.” Hence, the supervised test.
“JD was pretty smart about how he rode the bike,” said Attack Performance’s Richard Stanboli. “He could have gone faster, but he was really respectful of the machine and didn’t want to put it on the ground.”
Day 1 conditions were far from ideal. “It was freezing!” said Beach. “When we showed up on Saturday, it was snowing.” He also admitted to being nervous. “First time on a SuperBike, first time on slicks.”
Stanboli brought two machines to the test. Both chassis were identical, but one was fitted with a stock engine, while the other had a ported cylinder head and stock camshafts, not the kit parts used at Daytona. “We had a bucket failure on the dyno at Daytona,” he explained. “So, I went back to stock cams.”
According to Stanboli, that engine made even more midrange and about the same peak—202 horsepower—as the kitted Daytona race engine. The stocker (Stanboli claims he hasn’t even changed the oil) produced “189 or 190” horsepower.
Beach had ridden Miller once before on a two-stroke Honda RS125. “I have more of a 125 background,” he said, “and 600s are like 125s: You carry a lot of corner speed. It wasn’t so much learning the track as it was learning how different the lines are on a SuperBike than a 600. The SuperBike is like a dirt-tracker: You’ve got to get it turned and shoot out.”
Beach also had to come to grips with a SuperBike’s advanced electronics, more powerful brakes (“a thousand times better than on the 600”) and higher top speed.
“This was my first experience with traction control,” he admitted. “From the beginning of Day 1 to the end of Day 2, my riding was a lot different.
“It wasn’t so much when I could get on the throttle but how fast I could go to flat-out. I could start rolling on the gas and then instantly go from maybe a quarter-throttle to wide-open.”
“The TC was on pretty good in a couple of spots,” confirmed Stanboli. “He was into the power cut, for sure, and was using a fair amount of wheelie control coming off the last corner. He was trying to stick the throttle as soon as he could—stand the bike up and hit the throttle.”
Apparently, Beach has a pretty good race tuck. “The front straightaway was really, really long on a 125,” he laughed. “The first day on the SuperBike, I had the third [highest trap speed]. On the second day, I was fastest—189.7 mph.”
Stanboli was more concerned about the twisty bits of the track. “JD struggled the most in the last split—the ‘Wind-Up-and-Release’ section,” he said. “I had to coax some info out of him to make the bike get around there a little better. We reduced trail, and he was able to change direction on the gas considerably easier and get through there faster. He went from P12 to P3 or 4 right away.
“In ‘The Attitudes,’ where it’s a lot of on-the-gas, off-the-gas, Josh [Hayes] just ripped through there. JD just doesn’t have it yet. He probably wasn’t using his legs enough. Josh saw JD at the hotel. He said JD was walking like he just got off a horse.”
Once he got up to speed, Beach encountered some bump-compliance issues in the middle of the corner, which were easily fixed. “We put in a softer [fork] setting and pulled out some oil,” said Stanboli. With those changes and a fresh set of rubber, Beach “went straight into the 1:52s.”
Beach was pleased with his progress but knows the 2 seconds that separated him from Hayes will be hard to find. “I got to ride with Josh a little bit and some with Roger Lee [Hayden],” he said. “The way they ride is so totally different—so aggressive!
“You can watch it on TV, but when you’re right behind them, it’s way different. You see the bike moving under brakes and hear when they get on the throttle. Josh gets on the throttle so early. You can hear it. Roger brakes so deep in the turns. You can almost see the front tucking. After two days, I had blisters all over the palms of my hands, and my right hand was bruised from braking.”
Stanboli was pleased with Beach’s progress. “His lines are pretty good. He needs to use the entire track, run up on the curbing, use the power of the 1000, things like that.
Beach also spent time with AMA SuperBike champ Josh Hayes: “I told JD, ‘A SuperBike is basically overkill on everything—more power than you can use, a lot of grip, ridiculous braking,’” said Hayes. “He has to learn to sort out the speed and deal with the forces. That’s not going to happen overnight. But JD’s capable of doing it.”
“His feedback was minimal, but the things he said made a big difference. In that regard, he was fairly precise. He’s not as critical as Eric. That’s good in a way. Some guys get caught up in so many little things that don’t make a difference on the racetrack, and it slows them down.
“He’s a good kid. I think if we would have had another day, he would have been in the 1:51s. I’m pretty certain of that.”
Three days after the test, AMA Pro Racing issued Beach a “probationary” American SuperBike license. The Washingtonian will make his debut at Round 2, May 13-15, at Infineon Raceway in Sonoma, California.
According to AMA Pro Racing Race Director David McGrath, the decision to allow Beach to move up to SuperBike was given a lot of consideration.
“Obviously, JD had quite a bit of riding experience even before showing up in SuperSport in 2009,” he said, “and he put in a very strong effort in 2010.
“We thought JD did a very good job at the test. At times, you’ll see guys riding with desperation, trying to do that extra little bit to ‘hang’ or to make a pass. I can’t give you any examples where JD stuck it out there a little more than he should have. I think that’s very commendable. What weighed a lot with me, as well, were the [positive] comments made following the Daytona 200 and at the test by his fellow riders.”
AMA Pro Racing is eager to keep Kawasaki—the green truck, as McGrath put it—in the paddock. “But, obviously, the rider is a huge part of the puzzle,” he said. “It’s got to be right. If I thought JD was going to be in over his head, it wouldn’t move forward. My personal opinion is that JD is going to approach this in the correct way—thoughtfully and methodically.”
Beach is itching for the race weekend to begin. “I’ve never been to Infineon, and everyone says it’s going to be one of the toughest tracks,” he said. “So, the first race should be fun.”
“He’s going to have a hard time at Infineon, no doubt about it,” added Stanboli. “He’s going to have his hands full—a lot to learn.”
Hayes—a five-time race-winner at Infineon, three of those victories coming in SuperBike—agrees. “Infineon is going to be a different animal,” he said. “Miller is very high speed. Infineon is complicated with lots of elevation changes and bumps and undulations in the pavement. He will have covered both ends of the spectrum in his first two outings on the bike. Long-term, I think that will be good for him.”
Hayes went on to call Beach a “slam-dunk” for a SuperBike license. “I think his credentials speak for themselves. He’s got a national championship in AMA Pro Road Racing, national championships in dirt-track, an international championship. He has a lot of racing experience.
“He deserves to be out there.”
Hot laps with Roger Lee Hayden: “The Dunlop slicks stuck really good,” said Beach,” and you could trail-brake with them. The harder front tire was better for braking; it helped the chatter. The softer rear felt better, but it went away sooner.”
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