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Details were released yesterday on the new North America Talent Cup, a series intended to nurture young road racing talent here the same way it has done in Asia and Europe.
Of the 21 riders who competed in the premier class for all or most of the 2021 MotoGP season, 15 are from Spain or Italy and only three are from outside Europe. That leaves out a lot of the world for the highest profile world championship and Dorna, which runs MotoGP, first addressed that by creating the Asia Talent Cup in 2014, to provide an opportunity to young riders in the biggest motorcycle markets in the world. The Asia Talent Cup was followed by series in Britain and in northern Europe. Now, that formula is coming to North America for 2022.
Most of the seven NATC races in 2022 will take place as part of WERA race weekends across the country, but the Talent Cup kids will get some exposure to the pros, as well. The opening race will be part of the MotoGP weekend at the Circuit of the Americas in Texas and the last race will be part of the final MotoAmerica race weekend at Barber Motorsports Park in Alabama. Rise Moto and MotoAmerica will be the promoters and organizers of the series and the AMA will be the sanctioning body.
“The new North America Talent Cup will most definitely help us with our goal of developing more young riders who aspire to compete and represent the U.S. internationally," said MotoAmerica President Wayne Rainey.
So what does it cost to try to be a MotoGP star?
You're probably wondering just how expensive it is to go Talent Cup racing. The NATC will use Aprilia RS 250 SP2 race bikes on Dunlop tires and KYT will provide helmets. The Aprilia RS 250 SP2 is a 250 cc four-stroke single-cylinder race-only motorcycle with built-in data logging and data analysis capability, built by Aprilia and Ohvale. (Rise Moto CEO Brandon Cretu has been the U.S. distributor of Ohvale mini racers.) The 20 teams and riders accepted for the NATC will have to buy an RS 250 SP2 from Rise Moto, the promoter of the series, for a price of $13,950 plus tax and either pick up the bike in York, Pennsylvania, or pay for shipping. Dunlop will supply seven sets of tires free of charge and KYT will supply two helmets. Additional tires would have to be purchased.
There is a $1,650 entry fee for each team and rider and a $1,500 deposit that is refunded at the end of the season, if the team and rider participate in the entire championship.
Of course teams are also responsible for paying for their own transportation, other equipment, race fuel, spare parts and replacement parts for crash damage and other costs.
Increased scrutiny of teens racing
The addition of the North America Talent Cup comes at a time when road racing series for children in their early teens have come under greater scrutiny and criticism after a few high-profile deaths this year. Dorna responded by raising the minimum age and limiting the size of the grid for some of its series, including the Talent Cups. For 2022, NATC riders must be 13 to 16 years old and the minimum age rises to 14 in 2023, in keeping with the changes to the other Talent Cup series. The program will be limited to 20 riders in 2022 with a plan to expand to 26 the following year.
Dorna sees the NATC as a stepping stone between the MotoAmerica Mini Cup by Motul, which uses smaller Ohvale race bikes up to 190 cc (see the test by Zack) and runs at selected MotoAmerica race weekends, and the international Red Bull MotoGP Rookies Cup. The top two finishers in the NATC will have a chance to earn a spot in the field for the following season of the Rookies Cup.
The Rookies Cup also uses 250 cc singles, similar to the KTM Moto3 race bike, but the Rookies Cup motorcycles are significantly more powerful than the Aprilia RS 250 SP2 — in the neighborhood of 50 horsepower compared to around 30 for the Aprilia.
Of course it's not usually power that causes safety issues at this level of racing, as we saw this year with the deaths of Hugo Millán in the European Talent Cup and Dean Berta Viñales in World Supersport 300. Putting young, relatively inexperienced, risk-tolerant racers on identical motorcycles without a lot of power is a good formula for identifying rising talent. But it also makes for close racing in packs, and when something goes wrong, it's not necessarily the initial crash that's fatal, but the subsequent impacts from the following pack. That's one reason Dorna is keeping the grids smaller in the Talent Cup series.
Along with the MotoAmerica STG Junior Cup, the new North America Talent Cup will provide another potential route into professional road racing for teens. Applications for the 20 slots in the NATC opened yesterday and close at the end of the year.
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