North American Talent Cup

Saw on FB that its cancelled this season???

 

Where'd you see that?

 

I can confirm that the North America Talent Cup has been cancelled for 2023 due to lack of entries.
The series received a lot of direct support from the FIM. Without enough entries that support was not justified anymore so I could no longer afford to run the series on my own with the limited sponsorship I had available.

One of our kids went to Red Bull Rookies Cup and we most certainly would have had another this year. Our champion from last year has also had some great opportunities come his way.

Sucks that it’s come to this for everyone involved but I unfortunately lost the battle on every front behind the scenes to gain support and it became no longer viable.

I’m proud of what we accomplished last year with the resources we had and I think the racing was absolutely amazing at each round.

 

^^ man its stuff like this that really stinks about our sport.

I mean I get it, money makes it go round and all that. But the NATC was really promising to me. A relatively cost effective stepping stone between Mini Cup and the Rookies is something that is sorely needed in this hemisphere.

 

Just some observations...
The age limits probably hurt quite a bit- understand that's an FIM thing. A handful of 11-14 year old US riders already competing in Europe in various series.
Travel this year would have been double JC for Midwest based rider.

 

No way around the age thing for any series in the world. Even in Europe…at least not for a proper FIM Talent Cup series that is part of the Road to MotoGP program.

 

Well whatever feeder series that Kensei and Mikey Lou are running in isn't 14. It's an FIM thing right?

 

Not a Road To MotoGP program and not on 250’s.

 

They RRW article just out says 250s, maybe a typo, some on 150R. Completely understand FIM Road to MotoGP is 14. Get it. My point was that it seems the reality of the situation is young US riders that have any chance of going on to that level are already in Europe riding GP bikes well before 14. And if you're not then you're probably better off club riding shitty 400s and R3s and doing MotoA stuff. Hence why there was a challenge finding 20 riders willing to chase that dream.

 

The Moto5 championship he raced in last year uses a cheaper 250 air cooled engines as far as I know.

The Moto4 class mostly uses a liquid cooled Honda 150r engines.

Not the same and it’s a way for Spain to skirt the FIM rules from my viewpoint. FIM and Dorna are really trying hard to standardize roadracing and how kids progress through the sport so there is parity around the world.

Either way Moto5 and Moto4 in Spain are definitely no where near what something like the European Talent Cup or Asia Talent Cup are with proper NSF250 gp bikes.

 

I would bet the Moto4 bike would be pretty close to the NATC bike on track. For ex, at Barber cup bike are 5 sec slower than NSFs with fast riders. But I get it totally different. Sorry to muddy the waters. Not sure why there wasn't enough interest in the US.

 

The NATC bikes put out quite a bit more HP than a Moto4 bike so not sure I’d agree with that but they are certainly awesome little bikes.

 

I think you said 37hp early on for the cup bikes, the RRW press release says 30, no mention if thats crank or wheel but I do know the 150r we built last year made 24.5hp at the wheel on a Bazazz dyno.

 

So what becomes of all the bikes?

 

There have been some listed for sale here in the want ads. Mostly kids that got promoted and/or aged out of eligibility.

 

Correct me if I’m wrong but these bikes is nothing more the old Aprilia RS 125 but now a different engine. Basically this is what Rossi rode before he jumped on the GP bikes, also Chaz Davis, Cruthlow, Stoner rode the same bikes in the UK very early in their careers.

 

No

 

like any other bike…you ride it, leave it sit, or sell it.

what’s different?