Cameron Beaubier, the third-place finisher in the 2014 AMA Pro Superbike Championship, got his first taste of the 2015 Yamaha YZF-R1 during a one-day test December 15 at Chuckwalla Valley Raceway, in Desert Center, California, and Beaubier came away from the day full of excitement about the machine his 2015 Superbike will be based upon.

“I guess you couldn’t really call it a test. It was more of a ride day,” Beaubier told Roadracingworld.com. “Josh [Hayes], he’s ridden the bike a couple of times and I hadn’t ridden the bike yet. So I went out on a bone stock bike, and it was really awesome. I hadn’t ridden in a while, and it was totally fun.”

Beaubier said his Rick Hobbs-led crew removed the lights and street equipment from a showroom stock YZF-R1 and put his number 2 on the bike’s distinctive nose and sent him out. The former AMA Pro Daytona SportBike Champion even started out on the Yamaha’s OEM Bridgestone street tires before switching to Dunlop slicks later in the day.

“As soon as I got on it, within a couple of laps I was comfortable,” said Beaubier. “I was expecting to be uncomfortable at first with it being a whole new bike, but I was instantly comfortable. I really like how it’s more compact. It fit me better than the old bike, I think.

“It ripped right out of the box. It was pretty impressive, really.

“I was impressed with the stock traction control and wheelie control. We ended up keeping the traction control [turned] down pretty low, pretty neutral, and we played with the wheelie control a little bit. It worked really good.

“I’m excited to see what it’s going to be like in race trim with all the race parts on it, because it was really fun to ride right out of the box.”

Beaubier said his team’s official testing of their race-prepped 2015 Yamaha YZF-R1 Superbikes will likely start in January of 2015.