TEK Moto Performance rider Alex Ricci, who competed in the final two rounds of the 2020 MotoAmerica SportbikeTrackGear.com Junior Cup series and will participate in his first full MotoAmerica season in 2021, was featured in a video segment that was produced and aired by the local TV station in his hometown of Chico, California. Ricci, whose racing is unhampered by…
I finally replaced my kitchen faucet over the weekend. I purchased the new unit about a month ago, and the box sat on the counter in the kitchen while I pondered the eventual task. As usual, my wife asked me one or three times, “When are you going to replace that faucet?” Ironically, in the time I was “preparing” for…
You can’t stop Jake “The Snake” Lewis, you can only hope to…sign him. And Altus Motorsports did. Following Altus Motorsports’ best MotoAmerica season yet, which saw Cameron Petersen race the Altus Motorsports Suzuki GSX-R1000 to eight wins, the 2020 Stock 1000 Championship, and the 2020 Superbike Cup, the team knew they have a title-winning bike, but big shoes to fill…
One if by land, two if by sea…and it looks like four in crates if by tractor-trailer. Word has it, and there is also photographic evidence, that the much-anticipated Aprilia RS 660 twin-cylinder sportbikes are in the U.S. and already in some dealerships. Ever since Aprilia introduced the bike last year, there has been much speculation and anticipation among the…
Fifteen-year-old Ben Gloddy, who finished fourth in last year’s SportbikeTrackGear.com Junior Cup Championship with eight podium finishes aboard his Quarterley Racing/On Track Development Kawasaki Ninja 400, has joined Landers Racing for the 2021 Junior Cup season. Gloddy will once again be aboard a Kawasaki. “First of all,” Gloddy said. “I want to thank Dale and Alex Quarterley, Bob Robbins, Eraldo…
There’s an old saying that goes, “Those who can, do, and those who can’t, teach.” For obvious reasons, it’s not a saying that’s espoused—or believed to be true—by any teachers I’ve ever met. It’s certainly not espoused by my…spouse, who is an 8th-grade language arts teacher as well as an accomplished poet. The saying is also not embraced by one…
It’s been well-documented that MotoAmerica has sent a number of riders to Europe to compete in overseas national championships, as well as world championships. Joe Roberts and Cameron Beaubier immediately come to mind as they get set to compete in the 2021 Moto2 World Championships, and so does Garrett Gerloff, who will soon start his sophomore season in the Superbike…
Fourteen-year-old Avery Dreher, who competed in the Mini Cup by Motul Championship last season, has made the jump to the SportbikeTrackGear.com Junior Cup Championship for 2021. Dreher has joined the newly formed PDR Motorsports racing team, and the youngster will be aboard a Kawasaki Ninja 400. According to PDR Motorsports team principal Edelberto Acosta, “We are extremely excited to have…
From our new Junior Cup sponsor SportbikeTrackGear.com comes word that 15-year-old Max Van will compete in MotoAmerica’s entry-level race class for the entire 2021 season. “Max ran three rounds last year,” commented Brian Van, who is Max’s father and the founder of SportbikeTrackGear.com. “We had a blast, and we decided to do the whole thing in 2021. Thank you to…
For fans who have attended MotoAmerica races and spent any time around the Westby Racing team transporter, you know that team owner Tryg Westby always has some interesting motorcycles to look at…along with the team’s #11 Westby Racing Yamaha YZF-R1 Superbike, of course. Whether it’s Tryg’s restored 1924 Harley-Davidson Model 24 JD and replica sidecar rig, his Spondon-framed Honda CBX, or his 1968 Yamaha…
During morning Superbike practice, while approaching turn one at New Hampshire International Speedway, Tom Kipp pulled in the clutch lever on his Yamaha YZF750R with his left hand, tapped the gearshift lever in staccato rhythm with his left foot to backshift four gears, and released the clutch lever while also squeezing the front brake with his right hand and feathering…
Virtually all of the riders who have won the Nicky Hayden AMA Horizon Award have been kids…except for the one who had kids of his own. In 2006, 28-year-old Cory Burleson from Harrison, Arkansas, won the Nicky Hayden AMA Road Racing Horizon Award based on his success at the AMA Road Racing Grand Championships, which were held at Mid-Ohio Sports…
A lot of people thought it had something to do with Coca-Cola. They speculated that the partially revealed red-and-white “swoosh” was IndyCar driver Graham Rahal’s tease that Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing acquired a new team sponsor in beverage giant Coca-Cola. Others took it to mean that Rahal was planning to do the Memorial Day Double and race in both the…
By definition, a turning point is the point of highest tension in a narrative work. It’s also the exact moment where the protagonist finally overcomes the obstacles, sees the light at the end of the tunnel, and heads toward triumph. We’ve seen it in thousands of cinematic productions, from every single Rocky movie ever made, to countless war films, to…
My 83-year-old father has had a lifelong love of woodworking. His career was as a mechanical engineer, but he retired early to pursue his passion for woodworking. And, over the years, that passion has manifested itself in the thousands of wood carvings, pieces of furniture, and entire buildings he created. I’ve tried to follow in my father’ footsteps in many…
The teams and riders in the MotoAmerica series are a highly competitive lot. They race each other hard on the track. But, in the paddock, there is a lot of benevolence where everything from spare parts to suspension settings is freely shared. The lessons in “sharing” that Supersport rider Nolan Lamkin learned in kindergarten clearly stayed with him because the…
A three-time AMA 750 Supersport Champion, 1992 AMA Superbike Champion, 1993 World Superbike Champion, two-time 500cc Grand Prix podium finisher, Suzuka 8 Hour winner…oh, and five-time Daytona 200 winner, Scott Russell had a hell of a career. Now a competitive cyclist, the Screaming Chief is this week’s guest on Off Track With Carruthers And Bice where the 2005 AMA Motorcycle…
In 2020, Oklahoma-based Altus Motorsports had their best-year ever, winning the Stock 1000 Championship with South African rider Cameron Petersen aboard their Suzuki GSX-R1000. And, as 2021 rapidly approaches, the team, which has one of the largest footprints in the entire MotoAmerica paddock, has announced two of their riders for the upcoming season. Back aboard his #59 Altus Motorsports Suzuki…
The following is from Robem Engineering… Orient Express Racing has reached an agreement with Robem Engineering to supply trackside K-Tech Suspension service and support at all 2021 MotoAmerica events. Eric Vallarta from Velocity Calibrations, a Certified Service Center, will handle the suspension service duties and work out of the Robem Engineering transporter. In addition to stocking a wide array of K-Tech…
Fifteen-year-old Ben Gloddy, who finished fourth in the 2020 Liqui Moly Junior Cup Championship with eight podiums in only his second year in the series, is a MotoAmerica hero, as well as a hero in his hometown of Northfield, New Hampshire. And now, he’s been officially recognized as a Hometown Hero in the Granite State. WMUR-TV, the ABC television affiliate…
Keith McCarty, Motorsports Racing Division Manager for Yamaha Motor Corporation, U.S.A., is retiring from his position after 44 years. He joined Carruthers and Bice on this episode of Off Track to talk about his incredible career in which he worked with legendary racers from Bob “Hurricane” Hannah to Josh “Hurricane” Hayes. We also asked him about his love of road…
On December 31, 2020, it will be the end of an era at Yamaha Motor Corporation, U.S.A. On that day, Keith McCarty is retiring as Motorsports Racing Division Manager for Yamaha, just three days shy of his 44th anniversary with the tuning-forks company. It all started on January 3, 1977. That was McCarty’s first day at Yamaha as mechanic for…
2004 was a breakthrough year for Jason DiSalvo at Daytona International Speedway (DIS). The former flat tracker, who also raced as a wild card in several Grand Prix World Championship events, joined Yamaha’s road racing team in 2003. DiSalvo’s sophomore season with Yamaha started off with a bang (in more ways than one) At DIS, DiSalvo (note how the acronym…
Last year’s Superbike Riders’ Holiday Gift Exchange was such a big hit that we decided to spread the spirit of giving far and wide throughout the MotoAmerica paddock. And, once again, the riders generously gave each other the most thoughtful of presents. Here are some highlights: Sean Dylan Kelly & Brandon Paasch > Richie Escalante Roger Hayden > Rocco Landers…
In the 1990s and early-to-mid 2000s, before the days of the “Big Kahuna” events that introduced Superbike doubleheaders that are the way of the world in the MotoAmerica era, it was very common for riders to compete in AMA professional road racing’s two major classes: Superbike and Supersport. Some of the riders of that era, most notably AMA Hall of…
First introduced in this iteration back in 2013, the Kawasaki ZX-6R features a long-stroke 636cc engine that delivers more power in the low to midrange compared with most of the other 600-class engines. And yet, despite this displacement advantage, it took the combination of Graves Motorsports engineering and development plus rider Richie Escalante to transform the bike into a MotoAmerica…
In early 1993, I had been asked by Gary Bahre, then-owner of New Hampshire International Speedway (NHIS), to create the brochure for the 70th Annual Loudon Classic. At that time of the year, and long before the invention of the Internet, I had no idea that Muzzy Kawasaki’s Scott Russell would be racing in the 1993 Superbike World Championship, and…
It’s been five weeks since the 2020 MotoAmerica season concluded at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca, and as of today, December 1, there is less than one month remaining in 2020. Thus far, we don’t think there’s been nearly enough talk about the upcoming 2021 MotoAmerica Superbike Championship. We’re going to do something about that, so read on. On paper, this…
Motorcycle road racers are daredevils by design. The straight-line speed, railing through the turns, and the lightness of being are almost akin to flying. That’s why it’s no surprise that a lot of pilots—even members of the Navy’s Blue Angels and Air Force’s Thunderbirds—also ride motorcycles. Recently, three members of the MotoAmerica paddock—Twins Cup riders Jason Madama and Kris Lillegard,…
It takes a discerning eye to notice the differences between the 2019 Yamaha YZF-R1 and the 2020 model, but the 2020 Monster Energy Attack Performance Yamaha YZF-R1 Superbike was a quantum leap forward in performance, which Cameron Beaubier and Jake Gagne exploited to the fullest. With team owner Richard Stanboli and his crew working in concert with both Yamaha U.S.…
