Three young U.S. roadracers advance their careers in Europe

This weekend, Brandon Paasch wrapped up the HEL Performance Motostar series at Brands Hatch in Great Britain. The series races Moto3 bikes and is a support class for the British Superbike Championship. Paasch (shown in the photo above, tucking his six-foot, one-inch frame behind the tiny bubble of a Moto3 bike) is an 18-year-old from New Jersey who won the KTM RC Cup championship in MotoAmerica in 2016.

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WE DID IT! 2019 @officialbsb moto3 champion! And, the FIRST ever American to win a British championship! I can’t thank the whole @fpwracing team, my friends and family that stuck behind me through the highs and the lows. I also wanna give a huge shout out to all the marshals and fans that come out and support us at every event! Congrats to @joshwhatley70 and Asher on a great season. One more go at it tomorrow! Let’s get it!

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Oct 19, 2019 at 7:57am PDT

Paasch has now set two firsts this year: first U.S. rider to win a British Superbike class and this summer he became the first U.S. rider to race in Moto3 when he got a wildcard ride at the British round of the MotoGP world championship.

Another young rider who made a breakthrough is Rocco Landers, who survived a high-pressure tryout to become one of 11 racers selected to join the 2020 Red Bull Rookies Cup. This video shows Landers' reaction to being selected. You can see the suspense on his face, as his was the last name on the list to be read aloud.

He’s just an excitable boy, they all said... Rocco Landers celebrates being chosen for the @RedBullRookies Cup. pic.twitter.com/f1x1vNCSXT

— MotoAmerica (@MotoAmerica1) October 19, 2019

The Rookies Cup tryout gave 109 riders from 37 countries a shot at the 11 open spots. Riders had short, 15-minute sessions on track to demonstrate their skills.

Moving on to the Red Bull Rookies Cup was crucial to Landers, who easily won the MotoAmerica Liqui Moly Junior Cup this year, winning 14 of 17 races. Because the Oregon rider is still just 14 years old, he was too young to move up the ranks in MotoAmerica to the Twins Cup or Supersport class, so his options were very limited if he stayed in the United States in 2020.

A rookie from Texas on a Yamaha in World Superbike?

The last time that scenario happened, the results were spectacular, as Ben Spies moved from the AMA Superbike championship to World Superbike and won the 2009 title in his first year. It's too much to expect an exact repeat of that, but the GRT Yamaha team in World Superbike confirmed today that MotoAmerica Supersport champion and recent EBC Brakes Superbike race winner Garrett Gerloff will join the team in 2020.

Gerloff, 24, will be teammates with current World Supersport contender Federico Caricasulo, age 23. It's a completely new and younger lineup for the team as they replace Marco Melandri, who is retiring, and Sandro Cortese, who has had a lackluster season, currently sitting 11th in the standings. The team will also get a new name: GRT Yamaha WorldSBK Junior Team.

Gerloff came on strong in the second half of 2019, his second season in Superbike with the Monster Energy/Yamalube/Yamaha Factory Racing team. Beginning with his breakthrough first win at Laguna Seca, he won four of the last nine races and was consistently one of the fastest riders in nearly every session. He had a legitimate shot at winning the championship until he recorded zero points in two races late in the season, one at Pittsburgh due to a mechanical problem and one at New Jersey, where a practice session crash caused him to be declared unfit for race two.

The number of U.S. racers at the top world championship level in recent years has ranged from one to none. Gerloff will at least keep a U.S. presence alive in WSBK.