MotoGP | 2025 | Silly Season

I don't know him or his dad, but I have met them a few times riding at H2R down in San Marcos, TX before he started overseas. Super talented and hungry. They were also friendly and awesome to talk to and watch them work. I'll be pulling for them.

 

for sure… I only know their posts and that a few in industry guys have mentioned his program enthusiastically.

Hope they succeed.

 

Hell ya! If I had the extra scratch, I'd rent a track, bring all those kids over and put them on Moto3 bikes for a week and invite a couple people to coach and observe.

 

That's gotta be doable for what you'd get for that Ferrari.

 

Here's your new plan. Sell everything, buy a fleet of moto3 and 2 bikes (3-4 each). Set them up to travel around a few euro gp tracks, Hire some instructors to run 1 week sessions, and have kids from North America pay to come over and do a high intensity GP training sessions. In between rounds, you could travel around over there on your KLR. Open up the sessions to actual racers/moto2/3 teams for testing if you can, so we have a real yardstick to measure against.

Start your own "Ranch".

In 2-4 years you will have enough clout to get invited to the actual ranch......

 

Quite the bait!

 

I've been thinking about this since the waaaay back days when Austin Dehaven went over to Italy solo at 16 y/o and it didn't go too well for him. He had the skill, the experience, the drive, and was the right age. The issue was he went over with no support system, no place to call "home" aside from his teammate's apartment, and didn't speak any of the languages.

What would be ideal, I think, would be to get the big American players in MotoAmerica, MotoGP, etc. to come together and co-op a US basecamp in Italy or Spain (somewhere central with easy access to tracks, airports, major cities, etc.) Have a few adult American race industry people on rotation to stay there and run it; multi-lingual preferred. It doesn't need to start off as a giant "camp" like those of Colin Edwards, Rossi, Dovi, etc. Just go visit those camps with the riders for training and eventually when the basecamp projects grows, you can build your own (or just partner with the existing ones for more track time).

Plus, there needs to be stronger networking between Americans and the existing JuniorGP teams and the org. The basecamp could certainly help strengthen that so there's a more clear path from racing in America to racing Internationally.

 

Got it. Honestly never really saw naysayers about her Rahal ride so I’m probably missing some context. As far as I’m concerned, I’m a huge fan and have been thrilled about her on that bike since the day it was announced. I’ve thought this whole time it’s the perfect place for her. She proved herself in the lower classes and clearly, as indicated by her results, she was ready for the next step and she deserves the capable team she has. And I’d love to see her progress and make it to the world stage. But every American that has preceded her in Europe over the last decade or so had FAR MORE success domestically first and most of those got chewed up and spit out. She needs to at least match the success domestically as some of those guys before even considering it.

 

Totally agree. I'd like her to succeed to whatever level she wants to achieve. Quite a few of the guys that went over and were spit out, were related to really poor treatment by the teams they were with. Herrin, Cam B, SDK.....I think if they had the right support, they could have shown better results.

 

Honest question.. Did Cam B leave because of poor treatment by American Racing? I thought that was all good, but he has a family at home and a more clear path for his next few years racing locally and making a steady paycheck.

 

I've got no inside info on that, other than the same stuff you guys read/hear. I did hear comments that the team was still trying to figure things out, and were behind the curve on figuring out the bike. I think Cam had a few crashes that shook his confidence a bit, and from where I was sitting, it looked like he was overriding the bike each time he crashed. It's all got to come together at that level, right? I know that Herrin got a raw deal over there. SDK I'm not sure.

 

This makes me wonder, would it not almost be better for someone with less domestic success to go? Riders with lots of success means they have tons of time on production machines and are use to that feel. I would think it would almost be easier for someone with less time to develop a feel for the GP chassis quicker rather than someone trying to make the GP chassis feel like their R6/GSXR

 

If you aren't stomping eurotrash ass by 14 y.o., it's likely not in the cards for you. Going over there AFTER you establish street cred by winning supersport here is way too late.

 

Do you think maybe your ex would be willing to front the money?

(couldn't resist that setup because I'm a child)

 

Well we know he still talks to her regularly so he can definitely ask.

 

assholes

 

Yes, but not straight into GP racing. More Americans need to get over to Europe to ride Moto3 & Moto2 bikes in JuniorGP to get used to the machines as well as the tracks. It also doesn’t hurt to socialize and network while you’re there to meet team owners, make friends with other racers, crew chiefs, talent managers, etc.

There’s a step missing between racing in the US and racing in GP. Until MotoAmerica runs full on Moto2 / Moto3 spec machines, there’s always that extra hurdle.
If Liberty have their way and create more American rounds of MotoGP racing, the issue could solve itself having access to multiple GP tracks and eventually we’d get the bikes locally too (I’d hope).

That’s not to say there’s no other path. It’s just not as smooth. Someone “can” fine tune skills here and go right to Moto2 and do well. I think Cam B performed really well having not ridden those bikes prior. I think if he were in another season we’d see him on the podium at least a few times and maybe wins.
Age really becomes the issue because it seems like Americans (in general, not all of course) are waiting until they’re in their young 20s to make the jump. Again, it’s still possible, but less likely and not as smooth.

 

Beaubier had a slightly different route to Moto2, he raced Red Bull Rookies Cup, 125 CEV in Spain, and 125 GPs with Marc Marquez. It was a long time between that and his Moto2 seasons, but it was very different than jumping in straight from the MotoAmerica series.

 

I can’t imagine much of racing 125 2-strokes and then racing for what, 10 years? in America on production bikes.. really gives him much advantage. The track surfaces have all changed some and any special knowledge wouldn’t move him up the grid 10 spots.
I suppose someone could ask Cam directly though and we’d have a bit more insight into the value of his early years over there with such a big gap.