5 Race Classes And 138 Rider Entrants Headed To Ridge Motorsports Park For Next Weekend's MotoAmerica Event

MotoAmerica’s annual swing through the Pacific Northwest is next weekend, June 28 through 30, as MotoAmerica Superbikes At Ridge Motorsports Park delivers the action and excitement of some of the world’s best professional motorcycle road racers to Shelton, Washington’s challenging 16-turn, 2.47-mile road course.

Each lap of Ridge Motorsports Park’s road circuit delivers high-speed straights, sweeper turns, huge compressions, blind crests, challenging esses, a long carousel turn where you walk the tightrope between speed and grip, a double-apex turn leading to another valley, a cresting turn leading into a heavy braking zone, a short sprint between tight turns, and finally, a breathtaking 50-foot plunge down the ridge into a technically difficult sequence of turns before putting the hammer down on the front straight again. All of this in a park-like forest setting with stunning mountain views.

Let’s take a closer look at the one-hundred-thirty-plus-eight entries who will be racing next weekend at Ridge:

Steel Commander Superbike

After Steel Commander Superbike race one concludes at Ridge next Saturday, MotoAmerica’s premier road racing championship will be at exactly the halfway point of the season. Ten races will have been completed and ten races will still be on the schedule. Translation: there is a lot of racing left in 2024.

We don’t yet know who the clear-cut favorite is to win the title, but we do know that Ridge is a pivotal round. A total of 34 riders will take their shot.

Supersport

Ridge Motorsports Park is a heck of a road course on which to rail around on a middleweight motorcycle. The track features 300 feet of elevation change during each lap, and there are two 15-lap Supersport races on the schedule at Ridge. Add in a practice session, two qualifying sessions, and a Sunday morning warm-up session and 31 MotoAmerica Supersport Next Generation riders will be riding the Ridge roller coaster for all its worth next weekend.

Stock 1000

We found out at Brainerd International Raceway last weekend that Stock 1000 motorcycles are pretty darn fast. We didn’t think they were faster than the Steel Commander Superbikes, but Stock 1000 rider Tyler Bengford proved us wrong on that one. His BPR Racing Yamaha YZF-R1 was the fastest motorcycle of all, and by a pretty good margin. Could that possibly happen again next weekend at Ridge Motorsports Park? There will be 34 stock literbikes on track, so we will see if Brainerd was an anomaly or a trend.

Mission Super Hooligan National Championship

Almost four months will have passed by the time the 26 riders of the Mission Super Hooligan National Championship last raced. And then, it was at Daytona International Speedway, which is unlike any other track on which the MSHNC riders will compete in their five-round season. Ridge marks the beginning of a run of four straight rounds for Super Hooligan, which means the riders will be busy with two races on every one of MotoAmerica’s next four race weekends. This is where the momentum starts, the cream rises to the top, and the championship picture starts to form.

There is very little bodywork on these bikes, no windscreens to tuck behind, and the handlebars are above the triple clamps. In other words, they are motorcycles that look a lot like the motorcycles that many people ride on the streets. Except, these riders are much faster and lean over much further in the turns than you and me. And that’s why Super Hooligan is one of MotoAmerica’s fastest-growing race classes.

Royal Enfield Build. Train. Race.

A cadré of 13 talented road racers. A baker’s dozen of women who race-prepped their own Royal Enfield Continental GT 650 motorcycles, trained aboard them, and compete in two feature races during select MotoAmerica rounds. Ridge Motorsports Park is one of those select rounds, and it will be the penultimate weekend for this innovative program. The women have honed their racecraft and polished their skills during two prior rounds, so we expect to see them at the top of their games and ready to put on a show for the fans in attendance and also those watching on MotoAmerica Live+.