The Saturday MotoAmerica Motul Superbike race at New Jersey Motorsports Park wasn’t a race for long, as Josh Herrin (2) got out front early in the wet conditions and pulled away to an astounding 37-second margin of victory. Photo by Brian J. Nelson.
Josh Herrin has won two of the last four MotoAmerica Motul Superbike races, and both of those wins came in sketchy conditions. Coincidence? I don’t think so. I think Herrin’s approach to training has something to do with his recent success.
Lots of roadracers, from Valentino Rossi and Marc Márquez on down, ride flat track or motocross as part of their training, in part because the feel of the motorcycle constantly sliding beneath them helps them control their high-powered MotoGP prototypes or Superbikes when they’re sliding at the limits on race day. Herrin does it a bit differently.
Earlier this year, after his two second-place finishes at Road America, Herrin told me that part of his training is taking his Yamaha YZF-R1S street bike — the same R1S he took to Road Atlanta and hastily converted into a race bike when the truck carrying his Superbike broke down in Louisiana — to track days, shod with Dunlop Q3 street tires. The Q3 is a perfectly good track-day tire at the pace I ride, but at Herrin’s pace it quickly becomes a molten mess of destroyed rubber. And that’s the point. The R1S is sliding everywhere, and Herrin gets plenty of practice controlling it.
In this video, Herrin talks a little about how training with minibikes and intentionally riding them past their limits can help lesser riders learn where those limits are. He also acknowledges that other racers ride flat-track, but to him, that’s not the same as sliding on asphalt. Then he displays some gratuitous rear tire sliding on his R1S.
Herrin’s first Superbike win this season — and his first since 2013, the year he won the championship — came in the Saturday race at Pittsburgh International Race Complex in extremely unusual conditions. Just before the race, a small shower fell on part of the track. Turn two through turn seven were wet. The rest of the track was totally dry.
With the entire Superbike field on slicks, what resulted was two races in one. On the dry section, it was your typical MotoAmerica Motul Superbike race, knees dragging, bikes at redline. On the wet section, it looked like an intermediate track day with speeds and lean angles dramatically reduced, as nobody knew for sure how hard they could push on the wet track on slicks. Herrin pulled away early and held on for a solid win ahead of Garrett Gerloff and Mathew Scholtz.
That led to this exchange in the post-race press conference.
Me: Josh, you mentioned earlier in the year you were training by doing track days on your street R1S on street tires, so you were intentionally sliding around a lot. Do you think that helped you with today’s tricky conditions?
Herrin: Uhmm… I don’t know.
Scholtz: That’s a “yes.”
Everyone: Laughter.
Herrin’s second Superbike win came exactly two weeks later on a wet track at New Jersey Motorsports Park. Conditions were more normal, since the entire track was wet, but still slick. Herrin pulled away from the field steadily and eventually won by an astounding 37.13 seconds.
It would have been fascinating to see what Herrin could have done the next day at NJMP when conditions were significantly worse, with far more rain and even standing water on the track. Unfortunately, his team suffered mechanical problems with his R1 and he did not make the start.
I’ve always found it interesting that professional roadracers probably spend less time doing what they do for a living than any other pro athlete. World Cup players kick around a soccer ball every day. NBA players shoot hoops all the time. Superbike racers don’t really ride Superbikes all that often. They spend far more time riding bicycles, working out in the gym, riding flat-track or motocross bikes, etc.
Maybe Herrin’s onto something. You certainly can’t argue with his recent results.
