Former KTM RC 390 Cup and Supersport competitor Hayden Schultz is returning to the MotoAmerica paddock in 2020. Schultz will compete in the MotoAmerica Twins Cup championship aboard a Yamaha MT-07 prepared by Gene Burcham. After racing solely in flat track in 2019, Schultz decided to re-focus his efforts exclusively on the MotoAmerica Series for 2020. He’s had prior success…
Last year around this time, in a story on this Website, we mentioned the hinted-at Aprilia RS 660 and speculated about the bike’s potential in MotoAmerica’s Twins Cup class. Right from the get-go, with just a few photographs to go by, we could see that the Italian manufacturer’s twin-cylinder sportbike was designed with Twins Cup Championships as one of its…
After the revised version of the Yamaha YZF-R1 Superbike debuted in 2015, Josh Hayes’s chassis man Steve Rounds seemingly spent every spare moment of his time (at least while at the racetrack) working on the seat on Hayes’s #1 machine during the 2015 season. Shaving, gluing, and clamping down the neoprene on countless iterations of the seat, Rounds focused tirelessly…
Jake Lewis is always an interesting person to talk to, whether it’s about road racing, Kentucky Wildcats basketball, hairstyles, or riding dirt bikes in the woods. We checked in with the M4 ECSTAR Suzuki Superbike rider and asked him “The Friday 5.” Here are his answers: 1. What is your favorite thing about racing a Superbike? The speed and the…
Looking for all the world like a smaller version of the team’s iconic, gold-and-black Yamaha YZF-R1 Superbike, the Westby Racing R3 was built by team manager Chuck Giacchetto for the team’s first foray into racing in the Liqui Moly Junior Cup class. Engine: Chuck Giacchetto-Built 321cc, 4 Stroke, Liquid Cooled, 2 Cylinder, DOHC, 8 Valves with Yamaha GYT-R WSSP300 Engine…
Twins Cup rider Jason Madama is an interesting guy, to say the least. You need look no further than his colorful racebike to figure that out. And, as colorful as his bike is, Madama himself is even more colorful. He’s the perfect person to feature in “The Friday 5,” and here are his answers: 1. What is it about racing…
Veloce Racing made their debut in the MotoAmerica Liqui Moly Junior Cup class this past season at Utah Motorsports Campus, with 20-year-old Japanese racer Karen Ogura as the team’s rider. Ogura competed in a total of seven Junior Cup races, and she finished a season-high fifth at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca in July. Rider: Karen Ogura Engine: 321cc, 4 Stroke,…
The following is from Robem Engineering… Robem Engineering, in collaboration with RBoM Racing, will run a two-rider effort in the 2020 MotoAmerica Twins Cup Champions, and they have enlisted 2019 Liqui Moly Junior Cup racers Jackson Blackmon and Toby Khamsouk as the team’s riders. Blackmon and Khamsouk will contest the series on Robem-developed, third-generation Suzuki SV650 motorcycles. 18-year-old Blackmon got…
Westby Racing Superbike rider Mathew Scholtz is from South Africa, but he’s been enjoying life in Georgia for a few years now. In fact, the Peach State has been so peachy for him that he’s now in the process of buying a house there. We thought it would be a good time to ask him “The Friday Five,” so here…
The following is from Team Hammer… American Sean Dylan Kelly is set to make his Moto2 World Championship debut at the 2019 season finale in Valencia, Spain, on November 15-17. Team Hammer has granted the 17-year-old rising star — who is currently in the midst of a two-year (2019-2020) contract to race in MotoAmerica — permission to compete that…
Among the throng of Kawasaki Ninja 400 machines that competed in the 2019 Liqui Moly Junior Cup Championship, the bike that Rocco Landers raced stood out…mostly because of Rocco Landers, who dominated the season with 14 victories out of a total of 17 races on the season. But, credit does also need to go to the green machine that Landers’…
Rocco Landers’ 2019 MotoAmerica race season was one for the ages. The 14-year-old phenom came into the Liqui Moly Junior Cup and absolutely dominated aboard his Ninja400R.com/Norton Motorsports/Dr Farr Kawasaki, winning all but three of the 17 races on his way to capturing the Championship. And, he used that as a springboard to ultimately being selected to compete in next…
Bristling with components sourced from Graves Motorsports, the #69 RiCKdiculous Racing R6 is the product of Chuck Graves’ and company’s more than two decades of research and development work on Yamaha middleweight machines. Aboard the R6, and with recently retired crew chief Robert Ward by his side, Hayden Gillim notched five race wins and nine podium finishes in MotoAmerica Supersport…
Ben Gloddy started racing in MotoAmerica at Round 5 in Utah right after he turned 14 and became old enough to compete in the Liqui Moly Junior Cup class. The Quarterley Racing/On Track Development rider proved to be a quick study, and by Round 10 at Barber Motorsports Park, he scored a fourth-place result and a podium finish to cap…
2018 MotoAmerica Twins Cup Champion Chris Parrish has what is arguably one of the most developed Suzuki SV650 racebikes on the planet. From its pouting-mouth air intake to its mid-1990s Suzuki GSX-R SRAD-inspired custom tail section, the bike is not only the result of virtually countless club races, track days, test sessions, dyno runs, and MotoAmerica Twins Cup races, it…
Bryce Prince won the 2016 MotoAmerica Superstock 600 Championship aboard a Riders Discount Tuned Racing Yamaha. In 2017, he moved up to Superstock 1000 and raced a Yamaha for Hudson Motorcycles/Helmet Sounds.com before returning to middleweight machinery in 2018 where he competed in the Supersport class aboard a RiderzLaw Racing/KWR Yamaha. This past season, Prince returned to Tuned Racing, reuniting…
Cooper McDonald’s podium finish in the MotoAmerica Twins Cup race at Utah Motorsports Campus was one of the most genuine and joyous displays of pure motorcycle road racing-induced emotion ever seen. At the time, McDonald’s #120 Team AP MotoArts Yamaha MT-07 sported a distinctive, albeit plain-primered, livery but, by the end of the year, his Andy Palmer-prepared bike displayed vibrant…
Damian Jigalov is a young motorcycle racer from the Chicago area. He made his MotoAmerica debut in the Liqui Moly Junior Cup Championship after he turned 14 halfway through the 2018 season, and now 15 years old, he just completed his first full year of racing in the class. We got in touch with Jigalov to ask him “The Friday…
The Nicky Hayden AMA Horizon Awards are given each year to the top amateurs in three motorcycle racing disciplines: road racing, flat track racing, and motocross. The purpose of the Awards is to recognize amateur racers who demonstrate the skills and traits indicative of potential future success in professional racing. This past season, there were a total of six racers…
Dallas Daniels, who finished third in the 2019 Liqui Moly Junior Cup Championship despite a slightly abbreviated season, will be back aboard a road racer when he competes as a wild card entry in the FIM Supersport 300 World Championship at the final round of the season, October 24-26, at the Losail International Circuit in Doha, Qatar. According to Daniels,…
Categorized by Suzuki as a “standard” motorcycle, the SV650 was transformed into a MotoAmerica Twins Cup Championship-winning race bike by Team Hammer, who combined their ingenuity and past experience with race- and championship-winning twin-cylinder machines, a copious amount of top-shelf aftermarket components, and a young and very talented rider to capture the 2019 title. Rider: Alex Dumas Engine: Team Hammer-Built…
MotoAmerica’s first Twins Cup Champion Chris Parrish did everything he could to defend his 2018 title, but the Hermitage, Tennessee-based rider came up a little short, finishing fourth in the final standings. Traditionally a Suzuki SV650 rider, and a guru when it comes to extracting maximum performance from the S-brand’s middleweight V-twin, Parrish even switched to a Yamaha MT-07 for…
When Monster Energy/Yamalube/Yamaha Factory Racing’s Cameron Beaubier crossed the finish line at Barber Motorsports Park on the final day of the 2019 MotoAmerica EBC Brakes Superbike season, it increased Yamaha Motor Corporation, U.S.A. (YMUS)’s all-time Superbike Championship tally to a nice, round 10 titles. For long-time YMUS Racing employees Tom Halverson and Rick Hobbs, Superbike Championship number 10 had to…
Resplendent in bright yellow livery, the Heflin Racing Stock 1000 Yamaha R1 is awash in a bold “SUPERBIKE UNLIMITED” logo, which isn’t just a rolling billboard for Freddy Carswell’s Arden, North Carolina-based company. Carswell is Heflin’s crew chief, and Superbike Unlimited (SBU) handles the team’s data acquisition, suspension installation and tuning, fork and shock balancing, and more. Rider: Corey Heflin…
Nicknamed “Action Jackson” by the late, great Brian Drebber, Jackson Blackmon has been a fixture in MotoAmerica’s Liqui Moly Junior Cup class, and this past season, he began to make the transition to bigger bikes when he raced one of Russell Masecar’s Suzuki SV650s in the final two rounds of the Twins Cup Championship while still racing a Monkey Moto/AGV…
Stock 1000 has proven to be one of MotoAmerica’s most competitive race classes, and winning a MotoAmerica Stock 1000 Championship is difficult enough, but to successfully defend that title is a very tall task. Andrew Lee did just that in 2109, and his Franklin Armory/Graves Kawasaki ZX-10R was a constant fixture at the front of the field all season long.…
Scheibe Racing BMW Superbike rider Jake Gagne is a versatile guy. Besides motorcycle road racing, the San Diego resident surfs, rides bicycles, is a talent on a motocross bike, is an instructor at Danny Walker’s American Supercamp, and he enjoys a good comedy, especially when it’s about his hometown. Here are Gagne’s answers to “The Friday Five”: 1. What is…
Russell Masecar, who is the band leader of Russell’s Band of Misfits–otherwise known as “RBoM Racing”–sends word that Chris “CJ” Crosslin from Raleigh, North Carolina will make his return to the MotoAmerica paddock this weekend at Barber Motorsports Park where he will compete aboard the #409 RB0M Racing Suzuki SV650. According to Masecar, Crosslin will “attempt to upset the proverbial…
David Anthony has been racing in the U.S. since 2007, which makes it seem a little odd to still refer to the Australian expatriate as “Aussie Dave.” A former Suzuki Superbike rider, Anthony has been campaigning a Kawasaki ZX-10R in the MotoAmerica EBC Brakes Superbike series for the past several years. Ironically, Anthony utilizes a couple of stock Suzuki components…
Trevor Standish is a long-time member of the MotoAmerica race paddock. Along with his father Dean, the Standish’s Pure Attitude Racing team epitomizes “professionalism” in the way they look and perform, and at VIRginia International Raceway this season, the team had a breakthrough when Trevor finished on the podium in the Liqui Moly Junior Cup class. A former child actor,…
