Josh Herrin scores third consecutive victory at The Ridge's in Saturday's race

NBC Sports

29-06-2025

Josh Herrin narrowly beat Cameron Beaubier by 0.194 seconds at Ridge Motorsports Park in Shelton, Washington, in the first race of the doubleheader that makes up Round 4 of the MotoAmerica Superbike Series.
This is the first time Herrin has won three races consecutively during his career and comes while he is embroiled in a tight championship battle with Cameron Beaubier. These two riders entered the weekend with a two-point separation. They ended it with a change of leader and three points between them. But one race remains on Sunday before the series heads to Monterey on July 12.
In the first half of the race, Herrin built a 1.5-second lead over Beaubier before his rival battled back. Beaubier took the lead away from Herrin on Lap 11, held it for three circuits, before losing it again with two laps remaining.
With the victory the defending champion, Herrin, took the championship lead from Beaubier by three points.
'It was fun,' Herrin said in a news release. 'Like you guys talked about there, in the middle of the race I saw a plus 1.1 and I think I let it get to my head a little bit. I honestly thought about it a little bit too much. I didn't know if he (Beaubier) made a little mistake and I got that gap, or if I earned it. I kind of let off that little bit and you're not supposed to do that. Just keep looking forward. I felt good.'
This was the 19th career victory, which places Herrin ninth on the AMA Superbike wins list.
Despite losing the lead with three laps remaining, Beaubier felt some relief after crashing out of the second race of Round 3 at Road America.
'Honestly, just to be in the race for the win was a win in itself,' Beaubier said. 'Yesterday it was a pretty tough day. We were struggling pretty bad with the bike, mainly on the front end. The guys stayed really late last night kind of looking everything over. They had to rebuild me a bike after I threw it into the fence at Road America. So, a completely new bike. We had a couple things that we were struggling with that we don't normally struggle with.
With eight rounds remaining and one week after losing a sizeable points advantage, Beaubier's priorities shifted for Round 4.
'I went into this race, and I was like, 'I need to get some points,' ' Beaubier continued. ' 'I need to keep this thing on two wheels.' I knew how fast Jake (Gagne) was going and Josh this weekend. That was the main target. When Josh started riding away from me, I was like, 'let's just be patient.' Then he started coming back a little bit. I got a sniff and kept going. We had a little battle at the end, but I couldn't get close enough. He was really good off all the short corners getting that thing hooked up onto the straights. I just wasn't close enough to make any kind of move.'
A little more than two seconds further back, Jake Gagne took the final spot on the podium.
'Just foreign territory up there going into Turn 1 not behind a bunch of guys,' Gagne said. 'Compared to how slow I've been this year, it's just good to be up there and finish a few seconds off those guys, and at least that first half kind of be sniffing them. ... It had been a long time, besides the rain stuff, that I've ran even close to these guys. So, it's just good to be up there. '
Fourth-place Bobby Fong and Richie Escalante rounded out the top five.
The Ridge, Race 1 Results
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