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When I wrote my my annual MotoAmerica season preview last year, I noted that the focus was on the Superbike class more than ever. If anything, that's even more true in 2019, with the talent concentrated in the top class with new teams, and a new marque with the return of Ducati to AMA Superbike racing, and new contenders coming home from abroad in both Superbike and Supersport.
The MotoAmerica season starts this weekend at Road Atlanta and then shifts to the Circuit of the Americas in Texas in conjunction with the MotoGP Red Bull Grand Prix of the Americas. Here's some of what I'll be watching for this year.
The cream rises to EBC Brakes Superbike class
The Superbike field gets more stacked every year. The limiting factor is not really talent, but the number of teams with the resources to put a competitive Superbike on the grid and give their rider a legitimate shot at winning races.
Riders shuffled among the top teams since last year, but things will look exactly the same at the Monster Energy/Yamalube/Yamaha Factory Racing team. Defending champion Cameron Beaubier will be back to defend his title and 2017 Supersport champion Garrett Gerloff starts his sophomore year in the top class, looking to begin adding Superbike wins to his personal records.
The biggest moves happened as a result of Roger Hayden's retirement and the subsequent search by Yoshimura Suzuki to fill one of the most coveted seats in AMA Superbike racing. After a process that took much longer than originally anticipated, 2013 AMA Superbike champion Josh Herrin was chosen to ride alongside 2017 MotoAmerica champion Toni Elias (whose son was born in the off-season).
While Herrin clearly had posted the best results of any rider not on one of the two dominant factory teams in Superbike, his selection to fill Hayden's boots was not necessarily the easiest one, if only because of the history between Elias and Herrin. The most notable piece of that history happened at VIRginia International Raceway when Herrin crashed and took Elias out of the lead, a mistake that could have affected the championship. You can relive that moment at the 1:50 mark of the video that Yoshimura Suzuki put out to announce Herrin's selection. Even Yoshimura couldn't avoid that elephant in the room.
The pairing of Herrin, who loves to poke his competitors in front of his paddock-leading legions of social media followers, and Elias, who sometimes holds a smoldering grudge — the quote "I have memory" is forever attached to Elias' name in the paddock — could make for a volatile combination. Will two racers as competitive and aggressive as Elias and Herrin be able to maintain intra-team harmony for a whole season? It's a question a lot of people are wondering about, and Beaubier was asked for his take when he was interviewed on MotoAmerica's "Off Track" podcast by Paul Carruthers and Sean Bice.
"To be honest, I could see stuff getting a little hectic over there just because I know both those guys want to win really bad," said Beaubier. "When you're racing each other for first place and something happens, you get roughed up here or there, it's easy to get your emotions going. It's going to be interesting, though, for sure."
Herrin's late departure from the Attack Performance team led by bike-building wizard Richard Stanboli opened up a seat there. And that brings us to J.D. Beach. After winning more than half the Supersport races in 2018 and easily clinching the title, Beach was looking at a 2019 with no ride, after Yamaha folded its factory Supersport team. Beach eventually signed to race Supersport for Rickdickulous Racing and planned to contest most of the American Flat Track rounds for Estenson Racing on a Yamaha MT-07-based tracker.
But with Herrin moving on to Yoshimura, the wheels started turning in unexpected ways. Estenson Racing decided to team up with Attack Performance and put Beach on a Superbike, a ride he's clearly earned with his Supersport success. It's an intriguing partnership: Estenson Racing brings new money and expertise to MotoAmerica Superbike, Attack Performance brings proven ability as one of the top non-factory teams in the series, and Beach brings undeniable talent and a serious desire to win. Herrin challenged the factory teams on the Attack Yamaha YZF-R1. It will be fun to see what Beach can do.
Two other top non-factory teams return with the same riders for 2019: Mathew Scholtz is back for Westby Racing on an R1 and Jake Lewis returns for the M4 ECSTAR Suzuki team on a GSX-R1000.
Despite the loss of Honda, due to the demise of Danny Walker's Genuine Broaster Chicken team, the EBC Brakes Superbike class will still have five manufacturers this year as former Honda rider Jake Gagne (who is recovering from a leg fracture in an off-season off-road riding crash) `returns from World Superbike to ride a BMW S 1000 RR for Schiebe Racing and a Ducati will be back in the paddock for the first time in many years. After considering the options, Kyle Wyman Racing decided to run the new Ducati Panigale V4R that has won every World Superbike race so far this year in the hands of Álvaro Bautista.
After years racing a Yamaha YZF-R1, Wyman (who runs his own team, as well as racing) examined other options for 2019, and almost went with a BMW. But in the end, he decided to bring the Ducati brand back to Superbike racing in the United States. He finished his "off-season" in the best way possible, winning the Daytona 200 by a fraction of a second on an R6 before switching to his Ducati Superbike for the MotoAmerica season.
Along with Yamaha, Suzuki, BMW and probably at least one Kawasaki on the grid, Ducati keeps the number of manufacturers at five. It's still short of the peak days 20 years ago, when six factory teams were racing in the series, but the MotoAmerica Superbike grid gets a little stronger every year.
An all-new TV package
Like everything else, TV coverage had to be thrown together at the last minute when MotoAmerica took over the tattered remains of the AMA Superbike series for the 2015 season. Things improved in subsequent years as beIN Sports, the network that also carries MotoGP and World Superbike races in the United States, showed MotoAmerica races live. That was good for many viewers, because it meant the three biggest road racing series could be seen on the same channel, but it was not so good for those who couldn't get beIN Sports. The situation got worse when beIN Sports got into disputes with AT&T U-verse, DirecTV and Comcast, leaving some customers in the dark.
So with all that in the rearview mirror, MotoAmerica put together an all-new package for 2019 that includes new broadcast partners and a live streaming option. MotoAmerica has also taken control of the production of the shows.
So where do you see MotoAmerica races when you can't get to the track?
Superbike races will be shown either live or tape-delayed in 2019 on Fox Sports 2. Separately, a new show called "Inside MotoAmerica" will be broadcast on NBC Sports Network. That show will provide race highlights, feature stories and profiles for a behind-the-scenes look at the series. Finally, cord-cutters get what they've been asking for: MotoAmerica Live+ is a complete streaming option that will show some practice sessions, qualifying and all the races in all five classes and will be hosted by former MotoGP analyst Dylan Gray. A season pass costs $69.99 and access to one event costs $9.99.
With any big change, some fans will win and some will lose. Winners here include cord-cutters who don't want or have cable TV, customers of DirecTV and others who lost access to beIN Sports, and those who live in all the households that have access to Fox Sports 2 but not to beIN Sports (MotoAmerica says Fox Sports 2 reaches "four or five times more households" than beIN Sports). Losers include those who had beIN Sports and enjoyed the convenience of seeing MotoGP, World Superbike and MotoAmerica all on one channel. Also, fans of the Supersport class or those who enjoyed the Liqui-Moly Junior Cup races will have to pay up for MotoAmerica Live+ to see those races, as Fox Sports 2 will only show Superbike.
And what if you're totally broke and have none of the above? You may lose out, too. Last year, MotoAmerica posted videos of complete races on YouTube just days after the event, so everyone could see them for free by just waiting a couple of days. It's not yet been determined if that will be done this year, with the MotoAmerica Live+ option.
Protip: If you have a cable package that includes Fox Sports but not Fox Sports 2, you may still be able to view the Superbike races online for free. Log in to foxsportsgo.com using your cable provider account information to watch live TV on Fox Sports 2.
Other stories to watch
There are a hundred stories up and down the paddock, from the hospitality tents of the factory teams down to the 14-year-old Junior Cup racers traveling around the country with their parents in a van, seeking a bit of glory. Here are a few.
In its first year, the new Twins Cup class fielded almost an entirely different grid of riders at every round, as local racers came out to participate in the MotoAmerica weekend. Chris Parrish, one of the few to contest every round, won the title. This year, Liqui-Moly Junior Cup champion Alex Dumas moves to Twins Cup on a Suzuki SV650 with support from Team Hammer through the Roadracing World Young Guns program, adding a new element to the class.
"We wanted to try something with Alex that allows him to gain experience on a bigger bike with less pressure than jumping straight into the Supersport class," Team Hammer Manager Chris Ulrich said of the slightly built 16-year-old Canadian racer.
With the Twins Cup and Stock 1000 classes being all-new for 2018, participation was uneven. MotoAmerica says that entries for both classes for the first round at Road Atlanta are way up. With 600-class sport bike sales dwindling, road racing in general needs to find an intermediate class, and it will be interesting to see how classes like Twins Cup develop — or don't.
Meanwhile, MotoAmerica has shifted ever more attention to the Superbike class. But I think it will deserve the attention. With at least half a dozen or more riders capable of winning races, the season should be the most competitive yet in MotoAmerica's still-short tenure as the stewards of U.S. Superbike racing.
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