Splish-Splash It’s Petersen Over Gagne In Wet Ridge Race One

Cameron Petersen Tops Teammate Jake Gagne In Surprise Wet Race At
Ridge Motorsports Park

SHELTON, WA – June 30, 2024 – (Motor Sports NewsWire) – Rain races are difficult. Rain races when you’re not quite sure if they are going to stay wet are even worse. Turns out that the surprise rain on Saturday at Ridge Motorsports Park ended up truly surprising a lot of the field – but not the Attack Performance/Progressive/Yamaha Racing and Vision Wheel M4 ECSTAR Suzuki teams.

The result was a runaway one-two finish for the Yamaha squad with Cameron Petersen beating his teammate Jake Gagne by just .032 of a second in the red-flag-shortened race that was already shortened because of the conditions. The two crews had fitted Dunlop rain tires to Petersen’s and Gagne’s YZF-R1s and it paid dividends.

Third place went to the other factory team that got it right with Xavi Forés earning his first-career MotoAmerica Steel Commander Superbike podium by splish-splashing his way to third on the Vision Wheel M4 ECSTAR Suzuki with its full Dunlop rain tires. Forés ended up 9.5 seconds behind the Yamaha duo and some three seconds clear of Team Brazil’s Danilo Lewis with the Superbike Cup series leader also on rains.

The first of those using slick racing tires was eighth-placed Loris Baz on the Warhorse HSBK Racing Ducati with the Frenchman somehow keeping the Panigale V4 upright to cross the line a minute and 13 seconds off Petersen’s winning pace.

In between Lewis and Baz came AMD Motorsport RK Racing’s Richard Kerr, the Irishman at home in the conditions. Then came Stock 1000 podium finishers Ashton Yates with his Jones Honda and Real Steel Motorsports’ Hayden Gillim in seventh and eighth, respectively.

Forés’s teammate Brandon Paasch had rains fitted and came back from an off-track excursion to finish ninth. He was also given a five-second penalty for working on the bike on the grid.

Some big names who gambled with slicks paid the consequences, including Baz’s teammate Josh Herrin (11^th) and Wrench Motorcycles’ Bobby Fong (14^th).

Tytlers Cycle Racing’s JD Beach started from pit lane after opting to swap to rain tires after the warm-up lap. He rode through a lot of the pack to finish 10^th, turning in the fifth-fastest lap of the race in the process.

Among the non-finishers were Tytlers Cycle Racing’s Cameron Beaubier and TopPro Racing’s Sean Dylan Kelly, both of whom opted out after starting on slicks and realizing it was a…