J.D. Beach continued his winning ways at Virginia and blasted ahead of the competition in the first SuperSport contest.
Kicking off racing action at Virginia International Raceway in SuperSport was Rockwall Yamaha’s J.D. Beach. The current championship leader led a start-to-finsih victory race ahead of the field, crossing the line ahead of DNA Energy’s Joey Pascarella by a full 13 seconds.
Taking advantage of his second-place start on the grid, Beach blasted to the lead ahead of Huntley Nash and Tomas Puerta. Having a difficult start to his first race of the weekend was James Rispoli, who suffered a crash during the first few laps which put the Suzuki rider at the back of the pack. Up front Pascarella put the moves on Puerta to advance into third behind Nash while Beach continued his impressive pace up front, putting close to a three-second gap over the competition.
Further back Travis Wyman and RoadRacingWorld.com’s Daniel Guevara were trailing Puerta in fifth and sixth respectively. Shortly after on Lap 6, Vesrah Suzuki’s Nicholas Hansen made a push ahead of Guevara for sixth-place. At the halfway point in the contest the top-three riders had separated themselves with Beach leading by more than eight seconds.
On Lap 10 Pascarella took Nash in his sights and hunted him down for second-place. Also advancing was Miles Thornton, who made the leap to sixth after passing Hansen.
Beach eventually crossed the line way ahead of Pascarella, adding more points to his significant lead in the championship. Finishing just 0.706 seconds behind Pascarella in third was Nash, followed by Puerta and Thornton in fourth and fifth respectively. Overall it was a successful race for Yamaha, who dominated the top-six positions in the first VIR SuperSport competition.
AMA SuperSport VIR Race 1 Results:
Huntley Nash (#75) took third across the finish line after being passed by Joey Pascarella.
1. J.D. Beach (Yamaha)
2. Joey Pascarella (Yamaha)
3. Huntley Nash (Yamaha)
4. Tomas Puerta (Yamaha)
5. Miles Thornton (Yamaha)
6. Travis Wyman (Yamaha)
7. Nicholas Hansen (Suzuki)
8. Travis Ohge (Yamaha)
9. Eric Stump (Yamaha)
10. David Gaviria (Kawasaki)
11. Daniel Guevara (Suzuki)
12. Elena Myers (Suzuki)
13. Corey Alexander (Suzuki)
14. Ryan Kerr (Kawasaki)
15. Michael Corbino (Yamaha)
