Bobby Fong is the 2026 Quad Lock Superbike champion, and he got there without winning the race that clinched it.
On Sunday, September 27, in a soaking finale at New Jersey Motorsports Park, Fong rode to fourth place aboard his Attack Performance Progressive Yamaha YZF-R1. Championship rival Sean Dylan Kelly crashed out on lap four. That left Fong with 316 points to Kelly’s 305, his first career MotoAmerica Superbike title, and a shot of redemption one year after losing a title at the same track.
Here’s how a 26-point deficit turned into a championship in two days.
The short version
- Champion: Bobby Fong, Attack Performance Progressive Yamaha Racing, first career Superbike title.
- Final points: Fong 316, Kelly 305, Mathew Scholtz 284 (third), JD Beach 274 (fourth).
- The swing: Kelly entered the weekend with a 26-point lead. Fong won both Saturday races and cut it to two points.
- The finale: Kelly crashed on lap four of Sunday’s 15-lap wet Race 3. Fong finished fourth. Mathew Scholtz won the race.
A nor’easter changed the schedule
MotoAmerica’s 2026 Superbike season, its 50th anniversary, came down to four riders at NJMP: Kelly, Fong, Scholtz and Beach. Three races were on the weekend schedule. An approaching nor’easter changed when they’d be run, and MotoAmerica held two Superbike races on Saturday instead of one.
That made Saturday the day the championship moved. Fong won both.
Race 1 was damp, tricky and interrupted by red-flag restarts. Fong pulled clear to win by 3.287 seconds over Cameron Beaubier’s Ducati, with Beaubier’s teammate Benjamin Smith third for his first Superbike podium of the year. Kelly, the points leader, finished fourth.
Fong said afterward that it was his first wet podium ever, and that he had been lapped in the rain before, so the win meant a lot.
Race 2 was closer and messier. With five laps to go, Scholtz, Fong, Beach, Kelly and PJ Jacobsen were separated by less than a second. Scholtz led much of the late running before Fong made his winning pass with one lap left. Beach edged Scholtz by 0.159 seconds for second, a 1-2-3 Yamaha podium. Kelly took fourth again.
Two wins for Fong and two fourth-place finishes for Kelly cut the championship gap from 26 points to just two, with a single race left. Everything was decided in Sunday’s finale.
Here’s how the top five finished in each Saturday race, per MotoAmerica’s official reports:
- Race 1: Fong (Yamaha), Cameron Beaubier (Ducati), Benjamin Smith (Ducati), Kelly (BMW), Jayson Uribe (BMW). Uribe beat Scholtz for fifth by just 0.015 seconds.
- Race 2: Fong (Yamaha), Beach (Yamaha), Scholtz (Yamaha), Kelly, Cameron Petersen (Ducati).
Kelly’s fourth-place finishes kept him in front, but only barely.
Sunday: rain, wind and a lap-four crash
The title race started late. A nor’easter delivered torrential rain, high winds and long delays, and MotoAmerica’s account describes a paddock thick with tension by the time racing began. When the track finally cleared for racing, it was a 15-lap fight on a very wet surface.
Kelly, defending a two-point lead, needed to keep Fong behind him. MotoAmerica’s report describes an aggressive, do-or-die approach from Kelly on a slick track, and on lap four he lost control and crashed out of the race. It was his first DNF (did not finish) of the season.
Fong had been up front in the early laps, and with his rival down, the title was his if he finished high enough. MotoAmerica describes him riding with “steady poise” and taking the checkered flag in fourth. That was enough, with margin to spare: he won the title by 11 points.
Nothing in the official race report suggests Kelly was injured, and this story doesn’t speculate about it.
Who won Race 3
The championship went to Fong, but the race itself belonged to Mathew Scholtz.
The Strack Racing rider, moving back up to Superbike after winning the last two Supersport titles, took his fifth victory of the season. Scholtz says he followed Fong for a couple of laps, wanted to make sure the pass was “super clean” because Fong and Kelly were fighting for the title, and then opened a gap on his own.
Scholtz’s 25 points also moved him past Beach and into third overall, 284 points to Beach’s 274. He had been a single point behind Beach coming into the day.
Cameron Petersen was second on a Ducati Panigale V4 R, and Beach was third, so Yamaha had three of the top four finishers in Race 3.
Race 3 results, top 10
- Mathew Scholtz (Yamaha)
- Cameron Petersen (Ducati)
- JD Beach (Yamaha)
- Bobby Fong (Yamaha)
- Jayson Uribe (BMW)
- PJ Jacobsen (Ducati)
- Max Flinders (BMW)
- Brandon Paasch (Suzuki)
- Danilo Lewis (Honda)
- Andrew Lee (Honda)
The top 10 includes two Superbike Cup riders, Lewis and Lee. Superbike Cup is a separate class inside the same races.
What the season sheet says
Yamaha’s year. MotoAmerica says Yamaha clinched the Manufacturer of the Year award with Fong’s finish. Attack Performance Progressive Yamaha Racing collected its fifth Superbike title (2020, 2021, 2022, 2023 and 2026).
Fong’s arc. He said afterward that the team “fell short last year,” and MotoAmerica’s report ties the win to a late-season title heartbreak at NJMP in 2025. Fong called the championship the result of “working for this my whole entire life.”
A season that stayed tight. The 2026 title was decided by 11 points, and the third-through-fourth battle was separated by 10. Four riders were alive for the top spots going into the last weekend, on two makes of motorcycle: Yamaha for Fong, Scholtz and Beach, and BMW for Kelly.
Superbike Cup also settled
Real Steel Honda’s Andrew Lee finished second in Cup on Sunday (10th overall) to secure the 2026 Superbike Cup championship with 441 points. Super Carl Racing’s Carl Soltisz took vice-champion honors with 285.
Team Brazil Honda’s Danilo Lewis won Sunday’s Cup finale, his second Cup win of the weekend after his Race 2 victory, to finish third in class with 254 points. That moved him past Deion Campbell, who had a lap-five DNF in the finale and ended on 244.
What to watch after the checkered flag
The season is over, and the next chance to see Fong in a title-defending role is 2027. MotoAmerica’s results page is the place to check final classifications and points for anything not listed here.
Two small notes on the record. MotoAmerica’s Saturday report lists Kelly’s machine as a BMW in Race 1 and a Suzuki in the Race 2 list, while its 2026 rider profile identifies his OrangeCat machine as a BMW M 1000 RR. The Suzuki label appears to be an error in the Saturday summary; this story uses BMW. The results above come from MotoAmerica’s official race reports, and its results page is the place to check for later classification changes.
Kelly’s crash decided the last race, but Saturday decided the championship’s shape. Fong’s two wins forced a one-race showdown, and on a track slick enough to end a rival’s title bid on lap four, he finished fourth and took the crown.
References
- MotoAmerica: Bobby Fong Is The 2026 Quad Lock Superbike Champion — Official Sept. 27 finale report: Race 3 narrative, final points 316-305, Scholtz third at 284, Beach 274, top-10 Race 3 classification, Yamaha Manufacturer of the Year, Superbike Cup results.
- MotoAmerica: Fong Sweeps Saturday As Championship Narrows To Two Points — Official Sept. 26 report: schedule change for the approaching nor’easter, Race 1 and Race 2 results and gaps, Kelly’s two-point lead going into Sunday.
- MotoAmerica 2026 Quad Lock Superbike Championship Standings — Official current standings list Fong first with 316 points, Kelly second with 305, Scholtz third with 284 and Beach fourth with 274.
- MotoAmerica Sean Dylan Kelly Rider Profile — Identifies Kelly’s 2026 OrangeCat Racing motorcycle as a BMW M 1000 RR.