After a wild off-season, the MotoAmerica Superbike grid looks quite different

• The team that won the Superbike championship in 2025 isn't racing at all.
• The rider who won the Superbike championship in 2024 and finished second in 2025 is racing not in the Superbike class, but in Supersport and also racing an electric motorcycle in the Mission Super Hooligan National Championship.
• The rider who won three consecutive Superbike titles in 2021 through 2023 and a record-setting 17 of 20 races five years ago is not racing at all.
• A MotoGP veteran is racing in the Supersport class.

Those are just some of the more surprising changes, but there are others, with multiple Superbike riders switching teams and three former Superbike riders who had dropped down to the Supersport class now returning to the premier class.

Some classes have already begun their seasons (the Daytona 200 was a points-paying race in Supersport this year for the first time in the MotoAmerica era), but action begins in the premier Superbike series this weekend at Michelin Raceway Road Atlanta. Since the field has been scrambled this off-season, let's look at who's riding what and what to expect.

The champ jumps to Ducati

On Friday evening of the last round of the 2025 MotoAmerica Superbike season, after he crashed twice in practice and qualified fifth, few would have bet on Cameron Beaubier to emerge from the weekend with his sixth Superbike title, but after dramatic twists and turns in the final two races on Sunday, that's what happened. By contrast, it seems few are willing to bet against Beaubier and the Panigale V4 R as the 2026 season begins.

Despite its success, the Tytlers Cycle team Beaubier rode for the past three years on a BMW M 1000 RR is not returning to defend the title. It's not the first time a team found success on the track but couldn't make a business case for the expense of running a professional Superbike entry, and that math is especially difficult for a business that's regional rather than national, even a successful one like Tytlers. But coming off a year in which he won a sixth Superbike title and broke the record for the most career wins across all AMA Pro roadracing classes, you had to expect Beaubier would land on his feet.

For 2026, Beaubier joins the Warhorse HSBK Ducati Flo4Law team in a two-rider effort, along with Benjamin Smith, who brings the Flo4Law sponsorship to the team. That puts Beaubier, the winningest rider in AMA roadracing, on what many consider to be the strongest motorcycle in the paddock, the Ducati Panigale V4 R. It's hard not to consider him a clear favorite.

The most obvious obstacle between Beaubier and a seventh title is the man who appeared to be poised to win the 2025 championship until a crash on the last day of racing at New Jersey Motorsports Park last year took him out of the points lead. Bobby Fong returns for another year with the Attack Performance Progressive Yamaha Racing team, the only race winner in 2025 who's with the same team in 2026. Fong's teammate this year will be J.D. Beach, the 2015 and 2018 MotoAmerica Supersport champion who spent a few years racing in American Flat Track before returning to roadracing.

Another former Supersport champion, as well as a former Moto2 rider, Sean Dylan Kelly, is also switching rides this year, moving from the Vision Wheel M4 ECSTAR Suzuki team to the OrangeCat Racing BMW team for 2026. He'll be riding the same M 1000 RR that Beaubier rode to the championship last year. In the preseason test at the Circuit of the Americas, Kelly not only recorded the fastest lap time both days of the test, but also recorded a best lap of 2:07.358 on race tires, which was faster than the race lap record at COTA, set last year by Beaubier, who was not at this test.

Taking Kelly's GSX-R1000R is two-time Daytona 200 winner Brandon Paasch, who will team up with Vision Wheel M4 ECSTAR Suzuki returning rider Richie Escalante. The Mexican rider racked up three podium finishes in 2025 and is trying to make the next step toward the front.

In addition to the Warhorse HSBK team, the other Ducati team is Wrench Motorcycles. Cameron Petersen, who raced a Ducati in Supersport last year, is back in Superbike and riding the same Panigale V4 R that Herrin raced to second place in the championship in 2025. In the pre-season test at Circuit of the Americas, Petersen and his Ducati set the fastest top speed at 197.4 mph.

The two riders who dominated Supersport the last two years — Strack Racing's Mathew Scholtz, who won the championship both years, and Rahal Ducati's P.J. Jacobsen — are both staying with the same team but changing classes. Both Strack and Rahal are moving up to Superbike, bringing Scholtz and Jacobsen back to the class they raced in before 2023.

Of course that leaves the elephant-sized hole in the room that needs to be discussed, and that's the absence of two riders who have won four of the last five Superbike championships.

After dominating the series from 2021 through 2023, Jake Gagne suffered two frustrating seasons as he dealt with carpal tunnel syndrome and arm pump problems. On occasion he showed he could be as fast as ever, but not necessarily for race distance or consistently. Gagne, now 32 years old, has retreated to his home in the Colorado mountains and it's not clear whether he plans to take a year off and try to return to racing fitness or whether he will retire from racing. Beach fills his seat on the Attack Performance team.

Meanwhile, Josh Herrin, who won the Supersport title for the Warhorse HSBK Racing Ducati team in 2022, won the Superbike championship for the team in 2024, and finished second to Beaubier last year, was pushed out to make room for Beaubier on the Ducati. For the second time in his career, Herrin finds himself as a former Superbike champion (2013 and 2024) moving down to Supersport. Even more unexpected, he's also racing a Lightfighter V3-RH electric motorcycle for the OrangeCat Racing team in the Mission Super Hooligan series.

Supersport and King of the Baggers

When Herrin became available, the Rahal Ducati Moto team, managed by former World Superbike and AMA Superbike champion Ben Spies, decided to expand its Supersport effort from two bikes to three and pick up Herrin. Given Herrin's past success in the class and the fact that he's riding for what is probably the strongest team in Supersport, he has to be considered a massive favorite. With Scholtz, Jacobsen, and Petersen returning to Superbike, Herrin is up against mostly racers who are fast, but also younger and less experienced, such as his teammates, Kayla Yaakov and Alessandro Di Mario, M4 ECSTAR Suzuki's Tyler Scott, and Strack Racing's Blake Davis.

I say "mostly" younger and less experienced, because there's one glaring exception to that rule who is a large unknown factor in Supersport. That rider is Darryn Binder, the 28-year-old South African who has MotoGP experience on his resume and is riding a Ducati Panigale V2 for the Celtic/Economy Lube + Tire/Warhorse team in MotoAmerica Supersport this year.

Herrin got off to the best possible start by winning the Daytona 200 for the fourth year in a row, taking the early season points lead. Behind him were Scott second, Yaakov third (becoming the first woman to finish on the podium in the Daytona 200), Binder fourth, and Di Mario fifth.

The Mission King of the Baggers series also got started at Daytona with two races. The title defense by Harley-Davidson x Dynojet Factory Racing's Kyle Wyman was set back by two strong performances by the three-man J&P Cycles/Motul/Vance & Hines Factory Indian team, with Hayden Gillim and Troy Herfoss finishing one-two in the first race and Herfoss and Rocco Landers finishing first and second in the second race. Wyman finished third in both races.

Another change for 2026 is the elimination of standalone Stock 1000 races. As before, those machines — basically Superbike-level displacement but without full Superbike-level tech and modifications — will compete during the Superbike races for points in their own championship, called the Superbike Cup. But they won't have separate races of their own.

How to watch MotoAmerica

You can watch all the MotoAmerica races, you can watch races live, and you can watch races for free — you just can't necessarily do all at the same time.

First, the free options. New this year, cable subscribers with access to VICE TV will be able to see all 20 Superbike races live on that channel. Also new this season, if you have a Samsung device with access to the free Samsung TV Plus streaming service, you'll be able to watch live races and other content on the MotoAmerica TV 24/7 Fast Channel. You can also see all the races on a delayed basis on the MTRSPT1 streaming service. Additionally, MotoAmerica posts a lot of video content, including some full races, on its YouTube Channel.

Of course the easy way is also the way that involves application of funds. A subscription to the MotoAmericaLive+ streaming service costs $112 for the full season. That gets you access to all the races and qualifying sessions live across all classes, as well as most practice sessions and other content. The series has tried a few formulas for its feature show, which is also on MotoAmericaLive+. Currently, it's called "Generation Speed" and focuses on the young racers in the Talent Cup, trying to work their way into a professional racing career. Personally, I miss the old "Pressure to Rise" approach that focused on the Superbike class, but even as the feature program has changed format a few times over recent years, it has always told good stories.

The best way to watch the races, in my opinion, is in person. MotoAmerica has tried to make the events more family-friendly by including activities for children, stunt shows, and other entertainment. A general admission ticket gets you access to autograph sessions and the freedom to stroll the paddock, where you can watch from up close as the technicians carefully prep a Superbike for the race or frantically strip broken parts off a crashed bike, depending on the circumstances. 

In addition to the Superbike, Supersport, and King of the Baggers series mentioned above, there's a wide variety of racing at MotoAmerica weekends with Talent Cup for young riders as part of the "Road to MotoGP" program, Twins Cup, the all-women Build.Train.Race series by Royal Enfield, and the Mission Super Hooligan National Championship. See the schedule below to see which classes race at which rounds.