Saturday’s Motul Superbike race at Sonoma Raceway was an eventful one for Genuine Broaster Chicken Honda rider Cameron Petersen. After a solid Superpole effort that put him seventh on the grid, the South African was hoping for a top-five result in the race. Unfortunately, while negotiating the technical layout of Sonoma Raceway on lap 12 just past the halfway point…
RiderzLaw Racing’s Andrew Lee is currently leading the MotoAmerica Stock 1000 Championship aboard his Kawasaki ZX-10R. Lee is from Clovis, California, and he and his ARMY GIRL Team MF & Kawasaki team recently finished 19th overall in the iconic Suzuka 8-Hours Endurance Race. What was even more impressive is that he and his team finished second in the Superstock class,…
For thousands of years, and long before Europeans came to America, the Choctaw Nation was a tribe of farmers that lived in what is now the Southeastern United States, specifically in the Mississippi River Valley. But, in 1830, the United States federal government seized the Choctaw’s ancestral territory and sent the tribe on a forced migration to Southeastern Oklahoma. The…
When school lets out, summer camp is very much in session for many kids, and it’s an activity that many adults either fondly – or not so fondly – remember from their own childhoods. But, for MotoAmerica riders Cory Ventura and Jackson Blackmon, their summer camp meant school was actually in session. They skipped the campfire songs, s’mores, and three-legged…
Among the crashes during round six of the 2018 MotoAmerica Superbike Championship last weekend at Utah Motorsports Park, the two most notable ones were by defending champ and Yoshimura Suzuki Factory Racing rider Toni Elias on Friday during Superbike Qualifying Practice 1 and by Attack Performance/Herrin Compound/Yamaha rider Josh Herrin during Sunday Morning Superbike warmup. Both incidents were spectacular to…
At Utah Motorsports Campus over the past weekend, Cameron Beaubier’s Monster Energy/Yamalube/Yamaha Factory Racing YZF-R Superbike was equipped with an extra lever on the left clip-on. The extra appendage was attached below the clutch lever, so naturally, we wanted to find out the why’s and wherefores of this paddock innovation. We spoke with Beaubier and also with his Canadian Motorcycle…
We haven’t polled the entire paddock, but to every rider we’ve asked – and we’ve asked most of them – Utah Motorsports Campus is a favorite track on the MotoAmerica schedule. The fast and flowing layout of the Outer Course is often compared with tracks located in other parts of the world. In Friday’s qualifying practice sessions, there were a…
Danielle Diaz is a very busy lady. She’s currently pursuing a career in chiropractic while also racing in MotoAmerica’s Twins Cup class aboard a Kawasaki Ninja 650 that was lent to her by her friend Niccole Cox, who just so happens to be MotoAmerica Operations Manager. When Diaz isn’t studying about how to treat sore backs, she’s backing it…
Damian Jigalov is a young, but already very seasoned, motorcycle racer from the Chicago area. He just turned 14 at the end of June, so he is now eligible to race in MotoAmerica, and he’ll make his debut in the Liqui Moly Junior Cup Championship next weekend at Utah Motorsports Park where he’ll be aboard the #78 Biothermal Racing Yamaha…
When your last name is “Hayden” and you’re from Owensboro, Kentucky, motorcycles are embedded in your DNA. And, when you’re not racing on asphalt or dirt, you’re most likely riding motorcycles for training or fun. The fact is, motorcycles have defined Yoshimura Suzuki Factory Racing Superbike rider Roger Hayden almost since birth. Most people know that Roger Hayden spends quite…
Geoff May knows his way around a road racing motorcycle. He grew up in Georgia not far from Road Atlanta, and he still lives there. Over his nearly 20-year career, he’s raced Superbikes for Michael Jordan Motorsports, Erik Buell Racing (EBR), and others in both AMA racing as well as World Superbike. So, when Omega Moto needed an experienced rider…
WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca is an 11-turn, 2.238-mile road course on California’s Monterey Peninsula, and the track is a favorite of racers and fans worldwide. Three-time 500cc Grand Prix World Champion and two-time AMA Superbike Champion Wayne Rainey won a grand total of six races at WeatherTech Laguna Seca, including the 1983 AMA Superbike race on a Kawasaki, the 1984…
Andrew Lee is currently leading the MotoAmerica Stock 1000 Championship aboard his #14 RiderzLaw Kawasaki ZX-10R, and he’s at the top of the point standings because of his consistency. Lee has finished second in all three races so far this year, and while Travis Wyman has been the victor in two of those contests, an unfortunate DNF by Wyman at…
When Attack Performance/Herrin Compound Superbike rider Josh Herrin competes at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca next weekend, he’ll join a special group of motorcycle road racers who have competed as Wild Card entrants at World Superbike races held in the U.S. Herrin joins an elite list of legends that includes MotoAmerica race director Doug Chandler and rider representative Thomas Stevens, Scott…
Next month marks the 45th anniversary of something that is especially near and dear to the hearts of everyone at MotoAmerica: Superbike racing… and it all started at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca on July 28, 1973. In those days, when America’s motorcycle road racing circuits were dominated by Yamaha TA, TD, TR, and TZ purpose-built production two-stroke racers, Southern California…
One of the missions of MotoAmerica Twins Cup and Stock 1000 – two brand-new race classes for 2018 – is to attract road racers who aren’t, or haven’t recently, been regulars in MotoAmerica. We’ve already documented the success that Ghetto Customs/Suzuki rider Chris Parrish and Weir Everywhere Racing/BMW rider Travis Wyman have already had in Twins Cup and Stock 1000,…
Since the beginning of the MotoAmerica era of motorcycle road racing, the series has had an entry-level race class, the purpose of which has been to develop younger riders into future Superbike riders and, for the best of the best, World Champions. Initially, MotoAmerica’s entry-level race class was a spec series, with all the riders aboard the same brand and…
Dunlop, which is the official tire supplier for MotoAmerica, has introduced a new version of their KR451 N-Tek rear slick race tire, and it’s being used under race conditions by all the MotoAmerica Superbike teams and riders for the very first time this weekend at Road America. The tire, which is larger in circumference than the previous version of the…
Eight seconds off the pace. For Norwegian road racer Caroline Olsen, just getting back on a bike should have been cause for celebration, regardless of her pace. After all, a little more than six months prior, she was lying in a hospital bed at AtlantiCare Regional Medical Center in Atlantic City, New Jersey. Following her turn-one crash on September 10,…
The Canadian Motorcycle Hall of Fame recently announced their induction class of 2018 and among the eight legends and champions who will be honored on November 17 at the Delta Hotels Burnaby Conference Centre in Burnaby, British Columbia, are two people who are also well-documented in the annals of American professional motorcycle road racing. Rick Hobbs, who is two-time MotoAmerica…
Steve Scheibe is a quiet and unassuming man. This, despite his vast engineering knowledge and mechanical aptitude honed razor-sharp from decades of experience in professional motorcycle road racing, and also despite the fact that his eponymous Superbike team is called “Scheibe Racing.” “That’s the official name of our team as it appears on the MotoAmerica entry sheets,” Scheibe explains, “But…
If you spend some time talking with Thrashed Bike Racing’s Max Flinders – and, by the way, you should spend some time talking with him because he’s one of the nicest riders in the MotoAmerica paddock – you’ll detect something unusual about his accent. He currently…
At the beginning of the race season, we reported that more than $6 million is up for grabs to racers competing this year in MotoAmerica. Our point was that there is legitimate money to made and that applies to racers competing in the two new support classes that MotoAmerica introduced for 2018: Stock 1000 and Twins Cup. With just two…
Local and regional motorcycle road racing have always been the lifeblood of AMA-sanctioned professional road racing in the U.S., and when the MotoAmerica Twins Cup class was first conceived, hopes and expectations were that riders from WERA (West-Eastern Roadracing Association), AFM (American Federation of Motorcyclists), ASRA (American Sportbike Racing Association), CCS (Championship Cup Series), and other organizations would join the…
They say that life is a cycle, and that phrase certainly applies to Dale Quarterley… in more ways than one. Because, not only has most of Quarterley’s life revolved around motorcycles, these days, he’s come back full-circle to where he started. The Brockton, Massachusetts, native first made a name for himself in motorcycle road racing when he campaigned a Brockton…
Heading into round three of the 2018 MotoAmerica Motul Superbike Championship this weekend at VIRginia International Raceway, it’s hard to believe that Yoshimura/Suzuki Factory Racing’s always-likeable Roger Hayden is currently ranked 11th in the points standings. Two DNFs and a couple of so-so results in the other two races have put Hayden on his back foot in the early going…
When you talk about factory racing teams competing in the MotoAmerica Motul Superbike Championship, there are only two: Monster Energy/Yamalube/Yamaha Factory Racing and Yoshimura/Suzuki Factory Racing. And, as expected, those two teams are the overdogs in the series. They’ve won all three of the MotoAmerica Superbike Championships thus far. They have the best bikes, the best equipment, the best crew…
With two rounds and four races completed in the 2018 MotoAmerica Motul Superbike Championship, just what have we learned about this season? Can we extrapolate yet who will be the 2018 Champion? What conclusions can we make at this early stage? Ever since defending Superbike Champion Toni Elias started racing in MotoAmerica, the Spaniard has been quick out of the…
Along with two Motul Superbike races that are featured on MotoAmerica race weekends, another Superbike contest takes place, which is not a race per se (although it is somewhat of a race against time) but is equally as exciting. Superpole is the final qualifying session for the Superbike class on race weekends, and only a set number of riders –…
Three-time 500cc Grand Prix World Champion and motorcycle racing legend Kenny Roberts has always had a flair for the dramatic. In one of the latest manifestations of his unmistakable style, Roberts and his expert crew are transforming a Yamaha XSR700 motorcycle into a custom bike that closely resembles Kenny’s famous TZ750 flat-tracker, the iconic racebike on which KR famously won…
