What does Spain do to grow such a good crop of riders? With no Americans in the lower classes, what are the chances for another American to make it to Moto GP? With most of the kids moving to the heavier and slower Ninja and CBR 250's, are the other European and Asia country's going to dominate for the future?
I'm from Spain,(Mallorca), as a teen you grow up knowing all about bikes , you can't drive a car until 18 so a moped or similar becomes your first love, and stays in your hart waiting for your next upgrade. The speed bug gets you young, any traffic light it's a starting race. Mountain carving and tracks all over too.
Got a few tickets , back then just pay ,and no point to insurance system was in place. Got my first bike at a dealer,"motos Salom" , Salom brothers are racing now, any small neegborhood had a " the best bike tuner " for bikes, and weekends was time to prove it at the local racetrack .
Spain has a motorcycle culture, America has an auto culture. To the small extent that America does have any youth oriented motorcycle events, they predominantly focus on M/X. If there is no grass roots development program, there is no real chance to see success in the later years. I go to any local M/X track on any given weekend and there are scores of kids there. I go to a WERA round and there's hardly ever enough to get contingency money in a class.
I think there are a few young Americans that have a chance to make it to Moto GP. PJ has a pretty good chance right now, IMO. Maybe Cam B. too, if he can get over to Europe relatively soon (if thats his goal). The talent is here, but our talent doesn't run as deep as it does in spain right now.
It's because they fit them for their 1st set of leathers around the 2nd trimester. It's just in their blood or some shit.
Spent much of my weekend talking about this very thing. Main factor is Spainish companies and the racing series have invested in the sport. Spanish kids are racing CEV Moto3 and Moto2 bikes right now. That coupled with the fact it's much more popular in Spain = great environment for talent to develop. Everyone I talked at GP (included the Spanish) want more diversity, but tough to justify when factors are so far apart. Rest assured people are working on it at the highest levels of the sport. Getting more diversity out there.
They built a feeder system starting in the 90s to groom and foster young racers. Tons of articles around on it. Start them young, groom them, watch for the best, groom them more, back them with €€€€ and you eventually get Marquez. In One of the Schwantz interviews of the last week he said what he wanted to do with the cash he potentially could have made by promoting the Texas GP. Yeller Ferrari? Gold plated aircraft carrier? A BRM watch for Dave K? Nope, he wanted to use the cash to run 2 ~ 3 of the best american red bull kids in moto3 and 2 ~ 3 in moto2 to groom the next american motogp world champ. That bastard!!!!
Italy has been working hard to build a similar system. Hence the "Italian Federation" team last year with Fenati. They went from having tons of top riders to no real prospects (compared to Spain).
Unfortunately this hasn't panned out in a LONG time in F1...We got the going in Circles thing down pact though
What I'm most shocked about right now is the number of incredibly talented 'merican kids around right now. Rispoli, PJ, Gerloff, Beaubier, the Herrins, Odem, Solis. . . gawd, if there was the cash to polish them (and many others).
of course that's relevant, but don't you think that if the AMA class structure included 250 four stroke GP bikes and spec 600's in GP chassis as feeder classes, our kids would have a far better chance of getting into MotoGP?
