2025 MotoAmerica Parts Unlimited Talent Cup By Motul

Gave me a flashback there. I made one of those work on my YZ426 supermoto. With assistance from a friend who could drill and tap the engine sidecase for me. Pretty easy stuff, otherwise.

 

More heavy hitters becoming involved in 'The Cup' race:

"The 16-year-old Di Mario will also arrive in Texas with a quality team behind him, a squad that includes 250cc World Champion and World Superbike Champion John Kocinski as the team manager for the Ducati-supported Warhorse HSBK Racing Ducati entry."
https://www.motoamerica.com/cota-he...ent-cup-set-for-scintillating-debut-in-texas/

 

I expect @cota.kitty will need therapy after the stress of the past month but damn if this isn't pretty cool. With Honda, Yamaha, and Ducati throwing in series support, I'll bet Kramer is finding a few more interested customers.

 

This one has been hard to keep quiet. While some have put two and two together others may not have had a clue. But the rider mentioned in the above article as the youngest rider in the series and with support from Honda and real steel is my boy Ian Fraley.

looking forward to cota and the extreme up hill battle he is going to face but we have the team behind that no matter the outcome of the weekend he will leave there a better rider. Stop by and say hi if you’re going to be there.

 

Did you end up testing at Hallett this past weekend?
I expected you would be chiming in a bit more when you were ready to.
The very best of luck to you this coming weekend!

 

It seems like teams have been going out of their way to not share any details until the last possible moment. What is the motivation behind that? Is that why some of the teams went to an unofficial test at Hallett, just so they wouldn't have to show their cards?

 

You're about 1000% wrong. I'm a huge supporter of the concept and want Kramer and the series to succeed. I hated JR Cup and I'm a huge proponent of getting young riders on a GP chassis so they can learn to go fast on a good bike, not a crappy bike. That being said, I had concerns with the short time frame given to build and develop the bike and these issues that are popping up on the prodduction bikes which we've been told did not happen on the prototype/test bikes are concerning. I have close ties with two of the riders in Talent Cup and am well aware of what's going on.
So here we are 4 days before COTA and now we're in a time crunch to design, build and hopefully test an oil seperator/breather/labyrinth valve.
You think Honda designed and built the oil seperator for your 39 hp, 9:1 compression XL500S in 4 days?

 

yes

 

You ever do a roll out of a new product where the engineering team had different results/ outcomes than the production team or vice versa? I have and what we're seeing isn't totally surprising based on my experience.
Engineering has to make only a handful of examples work perfectly then they get to push it off to Production.
Production has to make the remaining quantity of them do the same thing Engineering did and, well, sometimes other issues arise.
Look at the amount of recalls on any given auto mfg, or recalls on airbags, recalls on car seats, recalls on toasters.
One glaring example was BMW's 4.4L engine which was a disaster when it first came over to the States and it all boiled down to the differences in fuel which resulted in low compression.

 

No sir we didn’t get to make the Hallet test. Without going into a lot of detail we had issues on the first bike got a second bike and had some issues on that one along with other hurdles we just couldn’t make it happen unfortunately or any testing for that matter. The team tried to get him on the track that’s for sure. But he’s not one to hang his head at a challenge. He will go at it full steam and take what he can from the positives and learn on every lap.

 

I get it, and I'm putting no blame on Kramer. I think they're doing everything possible to make it right. The push to have the kids ride at COTA with motogp is leaving very little time to address the issues...

 

I can only speak for us. We would have done anything to make the Cresson test outside of fixing the bike in the parking lot at Cresson. I'm sorry but no disrespect to that option, I wasn't comfortable with that and couldn't swing LA or Cleveland. Either way our parts didn't show up until the Monday of the test. I did 2500 miles of driving in 4 days to get the bike ready, find fuel, get gear and go to the closest track that was open. It wasn't an unofficial test, it was just a club race weekend. We don't have data yet, I ordered the aim stuff because I was told it was more user friendly and my racer does most of his own tuning on advice from his crew chief over the phone. Just me, the boy, 1 set of slicks that aren't what they are running, no springs. Just zip ties and turning the go barrel. The lap times are on race monitor, faster than the fast club guy on a 400, alot slower than Sanchez on a nsf. This was the first time out since October on a road race bike, so he's got ice racing habits too get out his system. Being sideways looks cool but isn't how to ride these things. I have to thank the Robem guys for going above and beyond to help us. We would be nowhere without them.

 

I would love one of these for my 450 SMR. Thing loves to puke oil into the air box.

 

how did that go?

 

Matt,met you and Ian last summer at Nelson and he rode my Kramer,great kid you have there and I have no doubt he will make you proud.I'm so stoked for this series.
I will be at mid O vintage days and will stop for a visit.

 

Matt - How long till you need a screen name change here @assjuice cyrus ?

:-D

 

We all know things in life often do not go the way we plan them to go.

I will venture to guess when this plan was being first proposed, discussed and developed, a COTA debut seemed reasonable and easily achievable to the Kramer partners and MotoAmerica to pitch to MGP.

KTM supply issues would not have been a consideration and more experienced Kramer test riders likely are a bit more experienced and refined riders than this group of exuberant hungry kids are.

Fabrication of 30 custom-built oil separators in a week is a realistic possibility. The first run might be less than perfect, but safety concerns will likely be paramount, with extra measures considered.

 

When I'm developing a product, I tend to handle it gently and assume that people will care for the thing I made. Then we hand it off to John. John is head of sales and I swear he could break a ball bearing in half with a wad of chewed gum. He doesn't know that he's also the head of our testing department. We send him home with a prototype for a week and I'm always surprised how someone can mishandle, misuse, and generally destroy our product so quickly.
I can't make myself be hard on things because I have mechanical sympathy. Hand it off to a handful of kids though, and I think we're gonna find the weak points pretty quick.

I've never had oil spitting problems with my EXC-F. That thing has done a dozen track days at NOLA where it's pinned wide open just off the limiter for ~10 seconds and it's never spit a drop of oil. Is that a thing all the newer singles are doing, or is it a case of some examples being more prone to doing it?

 

Front page news: https://www.motoamerica.com/aussie-...-talent-cup-debut-at-circuit-of-the-americas/

 

lol I had ZERO to do with that press release but I love it!

im keeping my 100% Win ratio with MotoAmerica.

fuck you Spies
Fuck you Mladin
Fuck you Duhamel (even though you’re 70)
Fuck you Mr Daytona.
All those guys, not one single twins win.

I like to think they were only successful by all the electronics from a SBK.

the real gangsters know the Twin is another animal when those 84 ponies come alive at once.