It’s Game On in MotoAmerica Medallia Superbike Championship as Pitt Race Beckons

Looks Like A Danilo Petrucci (Ducati) Vs. Jake Gagne (Yamaha) Battle To The End

IRVINE, CA – August 17, 2022 – (Motor Sports NewsWire) – While last year’s MotoAmerica Medallia Superbike Championship was predictable, the 2022 series is predictable only in its unpredictability as the series heads to Pittsburgh International Race Complex for the Superbikes At Pittsburgh, Presented by LaRoche Aviation Services, round, August 19-21.

For the first time since April, Danilo Petrucci leads the MotoAmerica Medallia Superbike Championship. Next up: Pittsburgh International Race Complex, August 19-21.
Photo by Brian J. Nelson

ast year Jake Gagne won 17 races, including 16 in a row. The only hiccups in his championship-winning season were a blown motor in the opener at Road Atlanta and a crash and remount to 12^th place in the pouring rain at Barber Motorsports Park after he’d already wrapped up the title. When you watched a MotoAmerica race, you assumed Gagne was going to win and 85 percent of the time he did. That’s predictability.

Fast forward to 2022.

Gagne and his Fresh N Lean Progressive Yamaha Racing YZF-R1 have won eight of the 14 races, or 57 percent. He’s crashed out of the lead in two races and suffered a mechanical issue that knocked him out of the first race of the year, for the second year in a row. Gagne looked to be on a roll heading into race two at Brainerd International Raceway with five wins in a row and a lead in the championship for the first time all season. With his high-speed race-two crash in Minnesota, all that was gone. The win streak and the points lead. Goodbye, predictability.

Hello, Mr. Petrucci.

Warhorse HSBK Racing Ducati NYC’s Danilo Petrucci led the point standings all the way up to the 13^thrace of the year when he lost it to Gagne by three points after the latter’s race-one win at Brainerd. With Gagne crashing at high speed and making his Yamaha look like it went through a woodchipper in race two, Petrucci was there to capitalize with his fourth win of the year and his first since April. And the points lead went back to the Italian. Predictable? Hardly.

Which brings us to the Superbikes At Pittsburgh, Presented by LaRoche Aviation Services, round at Pittsburgh International Race Complex this coming weekend, August 19-21. The bottom line: 13 points now separate the two at the top of the standings in the Petrucci vs. Gagne, Ducati vs. Yamaha showdown with six Medallia Superbike races still to run.

Petrucci’s…