Make America Great Again!!!

Go Joe Roberts!

 

Spang walkin' the tight rope on thread titles!!!

 

Yep this is so freaking awesome!! Just shows how once he got on a good bike it really made a difference.

I really think Josh Herrin would have had these same results too, had he got on a good team when he went over there. I could be wrong but I don't think Joe was any better than Josh at least when they were both in the states. I'm good friends with the Roberts and don't mean that negatively towards either rider. But Josh is really good too and when they were both in the States I would say Josh was more competitive in his chosen class, other than the year Joe ran on the 600 for JU for a few rounds and kicked butt while he had a break from Red Bull. Once Joe stepped up to the big boy 600 class, I don't recall him winning any races?

To me this just really shows that we do have some good racers over here in the USA and if we really just need the funding to get those racers over there for a few years to figure it all out.

 

What happened? The boy won something?

 

Set a new World Track record in Moto2!!!!

 

Daaaaamn! Hell yes!

 

Made ya look.
Go Joe!!!

 

Kinda tough to think that though because Herrin was on a decent team. Remember his teammate, on the same bike, was running top 5 pretty consistently and miles ahead of Herrin at every event. Yes the team was not the most experienced one out there by any means, but I think Herrin's performance was mostly on him, not the bike or the team.

 

Practice...but I'll take it.
Season opener and an American is putting a beatdown on them so far.
Go Joe.

 

Not even close to the same bike. Go look up some interviews with JH. They wouldn't even do things like changing handlebar position or peg position to make him comfortable. His crew wouldn't make adjustments that he requested oh, and just told him to go out and ride it.

 

What @Rdrace42 said. Plus Joes’s teammate last year did so well he moved up to MotoGP this year, after less time in Moto2.

Kinda like when Cameron Beaubier was teammates with Marc Marquez. Cameron was getting equal equipment to Marc, and Cam is obviously good, look what he has done here and he won the Redbull Rookies cup.

it’s another case of us Americans not getting the backing.

Fortunately Joe is in a team with American backing and the guy believes in Joe and kept funding the deal.

 

Isn't Joe with the same team now as last year? So not much changed, other than he clearly found some speed and/or confidence in the off season. Again...not the bike/team, but mostly rider. I guess I can't say that I actually know the details of what happened inside the team with Herrin, but as far as i can see, he and Zarco were on the same bike and Zarco did way better with that equipment. Handlebar/rear set positions...that doesn't count, it's still the same stuff, just adjust it how you want to. If the team mechanics or crew chief were pricks and didn't help out Josh as much as they helped Zarco...who knows? If that's really true, that's a shitty deal and sucks that it went on that way. Maybe there were some disagreements within the team or something, but at the end of the day he still had the same bike as Zarco.

But I'm not really getting the Cameron and Marc reference. Are you saying that Cameron could've accomplished what Marquez has so far had he been given the same opportunities as Marquez along the way?

 

Dude, do a little research. It was not the same bike that Zarco had. The riders aren't allowed to do work on the bikes. Josh requested changes to the seating position, and they refused. He requested suspension setting changes, and they refused. and do you really think that being comfortable on a bike doesn't affect your ability to perform? As for Joe, yes he's in the same team. if you were following the season at all last year, you would know that all the KTMs were struggling. Even Brad Binder, who is now riding for KTM in MotoGP, couldn't do anything with last year's chassis. Hey, go look at the results from Qatar yesterday, and tell me how many KTMs are listed. That's because the bike was a POS. The team switched to a Kalex chassis, which has won the bulk of moto 2 championships. Go check out Joe's interview on Motomatters, and maybe you'll understand why he's doing so much better.

 

This was supposed to say, Cam WASN'T getting equal equipment to Marc Marquez.

 

So @Rdrace42 covered it.

Joe is on the same team but different chassis this year (Kalex). I haven’t read his referenced interview yet, but will go do that next.

Regarding Cameron, I had a typo it was supposed to say he did not get equal equipment. I’m not saying anyone in the world is as good as Marq Marquez.

I am saying Cameron is really good, and won a race in Red Bull Rookies cup and then ran CEV and a year on 125 as Marc’s teammate.

He definitely did not get equal equipment, from what I read and what he and his father told me.
I’m also saying if we had more money backing guys from America, like the Europeans do, I think he could have stayed longer and been successful over there.

Fortunately Joe had enough talent and people backing him to get to this point. If you looked at his previous few years on the NTS and KTM he easily could have washed out and fortunately the owner of that team kept him there for another year and look at him shine now!!!!!

SO AWESOME!!!!

To be clear I’m not bagging on Joe he is great man from a great family and always was very fast. We started racing with him in 07. What I was trying to say is this helps prove that we Americans can still be fast on the world stage, given a talented rider and the financial backing to figure it out over a few years. Joe raced in Europe 3 years with Red Bull, came back to America for a couple years, went back to Europe and is starting his 4th year in MOTO2, when you count his CEV year.

He has also been expertly trained by California Superbike School for at least 10 years. Joe’s dad produced/made/filmed the Twist of the Wrist 2 video for Keith Code. Joe Roberts has definitely put in the hard work!

 

I can see DaveK or Papa gleefully hovering over the ban button when they read the thread title.

 

Joe is kicking ass and taking names. Can’t wait to see him in qualifying in a few hours. If you watch fp2 they have a great interview with Hopper in the last ten mins of the session who is mentoring him now. Both LA kid motorbike prodigies. Then right after the interview, Joe slams in the new record time. Was pretty cool.

keep America Great Joe!

 

While I had heard some questionable stuff about herrins team, it doesn’t really add up to me. Not saying herrin was lying but there’s two sides to every story. And it’s really hard to fathom that a team would spend the money that is required to run a second bike and not even make an attempt to accommodate the rider in a way that could improve his results. If that was the case, why even run the second bike? Just my .02

Oh and go joe! These past couple years I’ve had to pick and choose which series I kept up with religiously as unfortunately I just don’t have the time to watch and keep up with all of them. But this is definitely moving moto2 up the list.

 

Kinda weird how that team completely folded under shady circumstances right after thy season......

I might have a hard time believing it if I hadn’t seen/heard it firsthand in the pits at Indy.

I’m convinced the team owner did NOT like Americans and actively made sure his golden boy got royal treatment and the sorry American got whatever was left.