UPDATE: Less than two weeks after I wrote the post below about Cameron Beaubier’s future, it was out of date. In an unexpected twist, Joe Roberts announced he was leaving the American Racing Moto2 team and the obvious choice of replacement, for a team seeking to advance U.S. talent, was Beaubier. So although the domestic Superbike champ had always imagined that his route to a world championship would be through World Superbike, not MotoGP, he jumped on the unexpected opportunity. After the announcement, he then went out and won the last three MotoAmerica HONOS Superbike races of the year to tie Josh Hayes’ single-season win record of 16.
This weekend was a pivotal moment in the career of 2020 MotoAmerica HONOS Superbike champion Cameron Beaubier. For the first time this season, he had a difficult, even chaotic weekend of racing and didn’t win a race, even though it was the first tripleheader weekend for the series. Despite that, he scored enough points to nail down his fifth AMA Superbike title with three races remaining at the final round at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca in two weeks.
The other event that, in my opinion, likely determined the course of the remainder of his career took place across the ocean. The Pata Yamaha team in World Superbike announced that it had signed Andrea Locatelli for 2021 to replace Michael van der Mark. It was not a surprising decision. Locatelli has been as dominant this year in World Supersport as Beaubier has been in MotoAmerica Superbike, and he’s a young (about to turn 24), fast, European rider. Exactly who the Europe-based WSBK (and MotoGP) teams like to hire these days.
So though it was no surprise, it was pivotal, because the Pata Yamaha ride was one that would have definitely lured Beaubier to give up his enviable situation in the United States to go to Europe and aim for a world championship. It didn’t happen and now it’s unlikely it ever will.
The typical scene for the 2020 Superbike season until Indy: Cameron Beaubier in front of the field and winning by five to eight seconds. Photo by Brian J. Nelson.
Winning in the U.S. no longer guarantees a chance at the world stage
Coming to the Superbikes at the Brickyard round at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway this past weekend, Beaubier’s season had redefined domination. He’d won 13 of 14 races, only losing once at Road America when he crashed while leading. Take away the one race where he crashed, and he’d led 207 of 208 laps in Superbike.
That smooth, dreamlike season turned upside down at Indy, where he suffered multiple crashes (one due to fluid on the track, no fault of his own), red flags and tough new competition and finished with a DNF, a third and a second. That was enough, however, to clinch his fifth AMA Superbike title over his teammate, Jake Gagne, the last person with a mathematical chance of catching him.
One of the frustrating things for a rider like Beaubier is the reaction of some fans, usually the less knowledgeable ones, who criticize him for staying in MotoAmerica and not jumping up to World Superbike. Some even get cruder about it and basically suggest he’s afraid to test himself against the best. They act as if getting a ride on a Yamaha in WSBK is like going down to the dealer and buying a YZF-R1. Just make a call and make it happen, right?
In a recent video version of the regular MotoAmerica podcast, Beaubier responded to those who say he should go to WSBK: “Find me a ride, man. Find me a ride.”
“It’s tough,” Beaubier said. “All the people on social media, you try not to read the stuff but it’s too easy to open up the comments and it’s just frustrating, because people have no idea.”
Beaubier is one of the few motorcycle racers who earns a good salary. He has a long history with Yamaha, a great working relationship with Richard Stanboli, the owner of the Monster Energy Attack Performance Yamaha team that took over the brand’s Superbike program this year (Stanboli is also Beaubier’s crew chief), and he arguably rides the best bike in the paddock.
Sure, he could give all that up to get a non-paying ride with a lesser team in WSBK and ride around on a bike that’s not fully competitive, fighting to get into the top 10. By why would any sane person do that? As Beaubier said in the same video, if he got a chance at a truly competitive ride in WSBK, he’d leap at the opportunity.
“If I got that Pata opportunity, I would jump all over it,” Beaubier said, before Locatelli was signed for the ride. “That would be incredible… I want to go over there, too. I just want it to be the right opportunity. I’m just lucky for what I have here, but I feel like if I had the opportunity and I didn’t jump on it, I would kick myself when I’m done racing.”
Beaubier turns 28 before the end of the year. He could easily have several more years of competitive racing in him. But he’s not likely to be considered for a top-level, full-time ride in a world championship. There was a time when the United States was where world championship teams looked for talent, but now that’s the exception, not the rule. There are no U.S. riders at the top level in MotoGP or WSBK and its been more than a decade since the last American champion, when Ben Spies spectacularly won World Superbike in 2009 in his rookie year. But then Spies got the opportunity and the kind of ride that Beaubier hasn’t.
Cameron Beaubier has gelled perfectly with Richard Stanboli’s Monster Energy Attack Performance Yamaha team that’s running the Yamaha MotoAmerica Superbike program in 2020. It’s easy to have good team morale when you’re winning all the time. Photo by Brian J. Nelson.
So what’s left?
The challenges left for Beaubier may be to break the records of another man who was the target of the same criticisms. Australian Mat Mladin won seven AMA Superbike titles from 1999 through 2009 and stayed in the U.S. series for many of the same reasons Beaubier has stayed. He was earning good pay and riding for a great team, Yoshimura Suzuki, and the right offer never came along to lure him away.
In winning his fifth title, Beaubier has moved past his former teammate, Josh Hayes, into second on the list of AMA Superbike champions. It’s not hard to imagine him winning three more titles to pass Mladin.
He can also aim for Mladin’s race win record. Mladin has 82, Hayes has 61 and Beaubier now has 51.
Cameron Beaubier with one of his many first-place trophies this year. Photo by Brian J. Nelson.
Whether those records, if he attains them, or the record he has already amassed, will feel like enough when Beaubier retires is something only he’ll know then, and none of us, including him, can know now. But you can’t feel sorry for a guy who’s having great fun, doing what he loves and finding success at every turn (except this weekend).
“It was so fun just ripping off those wins and I was just really enjoying riding my bike all year,” Beaubier said Sunday as he soaked in the feeling of winning another championship. “I’ve never felt so comfortable on a bike and just at home with my guys.
“It’s been an amazing journey with Yamaha and it’s definitely something that in the future I’ll look back on and it may be the best moments of my life, who knows?”
