JD opens his 2017 season with a win at COTA

Saturday at The Circuit of The Americas saw an ideal start to 2017 for Yamaha’s Factory-Supported Supersport team, with Monster Energy/Yamalube/Yamaha Extended Service/Graves/Yamaha rider JD Beach taking a runaway victory.

In the afternoon’s Supersport race, JD got the jump on his polesitting teammate Garrett, not just once, but twice since the race was red-flagged, had to be shortened to an eight-lap sprint due to scheduling conflicts, and was re-started.

JD, who won the Supersport Championship in 2015, gave his 2017 Yamaha YZF-R6 a memorable MotoAmerica debut as he clicked off consistently fast laps from start to finish and took the checkered flag with a gap of nearly five seconds back to second-place finisher Valentin Debise.

After his win, JD said, “The off-season this year was a bit harder than usual for me because I broke my leg, and that’s the first major injury that I’ve ever had, so I had to come back from that. Being at home and training hard was good for me. So, the season has started, and it’s great to be back and close to 100% healthy. I came here to race, and I’m glad to get this win. It’s a long season, but I’m happy with where we’ve started.”

Source & photo: Yamaha Motor Corporation, U.S.A.