It’s been said many a time that if you’re racing a motorcycle and not crashing, you’re not trying hard enough. Perhaps. But if you look at the past two MotoAmerica Superbike Champions, one thing jumps out at you: They didn’t do a lot of crashing in their championship-winning years.
In 2023, Jake Gagne earned his third MotoAmerica Superbike title, and he crashed exactly zero times. None. Nada. Nil. And we’re not just talking about race crashes, we’re talking about crashes over the entire season in every session – practices, qualifying, morning warmups, and the races.
In 2024, Josh Herrin earned his second AMA Superbike title with an 11-year span between championships. He crashed just once in ’24 – in race two at Barber Motorsports Park. And that was it. No wonder he was able to score 335 points over the course of the season and wrap up the title with a race to spare. And his crew must love him for it as there was no burning of the midnight oil fixing a crashed motorcycle on a Saturday night, no rush jobs to fix the damage from a tip-over on Sunday morning. Except for that one time at Barber, Herrin brought the bike back to the crew in the same condition they’d given it to him. Every time.
And, as it turns out, Herrin was far from alone in crashing at Barber Motorsports Park as the picturesque circuit in Alabama led the way in the number of crashes in the 2024 MotoAmerica Championship with 80 get-offs.
Which leads us nicely into our 2024 “Who crashed the most and where?” story. And, as always, we begin with the racetracks.
With New Jersey Motorsports Park usually claiming the most-crashed-at racetrack honor, this year the torch was passed on to Barber. There were 80 crashes at Barber with riders in all six classes (12 races) contributing to that number (25 Supersport, 18 Junior Cup, 17 Twins Cup, nine Stock 1000, eight Superbike and three Royal Enfield Build. Train. Race.). And only seven of those incidents occurred on a damp/wet racetrack.
The corner that gave racers the most trouble was turn six, which is affectionally known as Charlotte’s Web. There were 12 crashes in the Web, and that only just beat out turns one and two, both of which also saw incidents in double digits with 11 apiece.
Road America ended up with the second most crashes of any of the MotoAmerica circuits with the track in Elkhart Lake claiming 68 incidents in its six classes (12 races). Supersport led the way with 17 crashes over the three-day weekend.
The guilty corner? Turn five, the lefthander at the end of the back straight where hard braking and a good place to pass always translates to plenty of action and not all of it is good. Fourteen of the 68 incidents took place in turn five.
Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course made a successful return to the AMA Superbike calendar after a 10-year hiatus, and it immediately jumped to the podium for the greatest number of crashes with 61 incidents over the three days. For Mid-Ohio, which also played host to six MotoAmerica classes, turn 13 was the biggest bugaboo with 11 crashes.
So what corner played host to the most crashes in 2024? That honor goes to Road Atlanta’s turn 10 left-right chicane with its 18 crashes beating out the 16 incidents that took place in the tricky turn one at Circuit of The Americas.
Ironically (or coincidentally?), the track with the least number of crashes is the one that is not returning to the MotoAmerica Championship schedule in 2025 – Brainerd International Raceway. The Minnesota racetrack ended its three-day weekend with the lowly crash total of just 33, seven less than WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca.
Also, a tip of the hat to NJMP for cutting its crash total down from 78 to just 38. Amazing what a new track surface, and a little more help from Mother Nature can do… only 13 of the incidents occurred in either damp or wet conditions.
Now comes the part of the story where the author gets the most heat for even bringing it up… who was the rider with the most crashes in the 2024 MotoAmerica Championship over all classes in all sessions?
Well, that rider is none other than Hayden Gillim, who crashed 10 times during the season. But before we berate anyone here, we need to take a few deep breaths and consider the fact that those 10 crashes didn’t come in just one class.
Gillim’s crash total comes via three classes – five in Mission King Of The Baggers, three in Steel Commander Superbike, and two in Stock 1000, making him an equal opportunity crasher. The fact that he crashed in three different classes also means that Gillim had up to three times the number of laps that anyone else had, though Stock 1000 had just five races, and he didn’t participate in all of the Superbike races. You get my drift. The dude was on the track for a lot of laps. Oh, and he also successfully defended his Stock 1000 title.
So, who was second on the crash list? That would be Harley-Davidson Factory Racing’s James Rispoli. Rispoli had a rough go of it to end his season in the Mission King Of The Baggers Championship, and he finished with eight crashes on the year. That made him the top faller in the Baggers class, though Gillim and Troy Herfoss each had five, and Herfoss was still able to come away with the title in his rookie season in MotoAmerica.
The Superport class had far and away the most crashes on the season, but some of those came in the non-points-paying Daytona 200. In all, there were 150 Supersport incidents over the course of the season with Altus Motorsports’ Jaret Nassaney leading the way with seven crashes.
The top Superbike riders as far as crash counts go ended in a tie between two racers with their six dismounts – Vision Wheel M4 ECSTAR Suzuki’s Brandon Paasch and Tytlers Cycle Racing’s JD Beach. Warhorse HSBK Racing’s Ducati’s Loris Baz ended up third on the list with five crashes. Still, that’s a solid weekend’s worth for the likes of Marc Marquez.
Thirteen riders scored points in the Royal Enfield Build. Train. Race. Championship, and 10 of them suffered at least one crash over the course of the season. The three riders who didn’t were led by class champion Mikayla Moore, who didn’t put a wheel wrong all year in winning her second successive BTR title. Pearltry Suen and Kate West joined Moore as the two other non-fallers.
