The Championship Picture: Superbike Cup
Andrew Lee has an impressive 10 wins this season, including seven of the first eight.
Every year when the calendar turns over from August to September it comes as a double-edged sword; it is a sign of the impending finale of another season of road racing while also being the point in the season when championships are usually coming down to the wire where the winners will start to separate themselves from the rest of the pack.
In most classes that is usually the case. Not in Superbike Cup this season. Andrew Lee began the season on an incredible run for the Real Steel Honda team that included winning seven of the first eight races. The one race Lee didn’t win was Race 2 at Road Atlanta where he finished 2nd.
After reeling off that impressive start to the season we left Ridge Motorsports Park with Lee having a commanding 84 point lead over then second place Carl Soltisz.
Race 1 at Laguna Seca brought that streak to an end by being the only race this season where Andrew Lee scored zero points, however the next day Andrew was able to come back and get a second place in Race 2.
Since that point in the season Lee has only needed to manage that gap, which is something he has easily been able to do by winning three of the last six races. The three races over the last six that Andrew Lee didn’t win? Lee finished in second place in each of those races as well to bring his season totals to 10 wins, four seconds and the one single DNF.
Deion Campbell won the first two races during the last race weekend at VIR
The only other rider to win races in this class this year is Deion Campbell, and he has passed Carl Soltisz for second place in the championship. Despite racking up his own impressive tally with five wins, three seconds and two third place finishes in 2026, Campbell has fallen 102 points behind Lee.
Unfortunately for Campbell, he has had some plain bad luck to go along with the impressive five wins he has this year for the BPR team on his Yamaha R1. In Race 1 at Road Atlanta he was disqualified for ignoring a meatball flag while in Race 3 at VIR Campbell was penalized four spots for a pass that was ruled to have taken place under yellow. In both races Deion was the first Superbike Cup rider to cross the line on the race track.
If Deion Campbell was able to go back in a time machine and keep those points he lost he wouldn’t necessarily be in position to make this championship a real fight, but it would be far more likely to at least remain a question until the final round.
With five races left to run in 2026 for Superbike Cup 125 points are still on the table to be earned. After the two races at Circuit of the Americas that number will shrink to 75. With a 102-point lead and only 125 points left up for grabs, it would take a disastrous weekend at COTA to prevent Lee from wrapping up his fourth MotoAmerica championship on Stock 1000 machinery before the Real Steel Honda team packs up to leave at the end of the weekend.
