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Wayne Rainey

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For the 2020 racing year, MotoAmerica has announced that it will run a three-round Mini Cup, in an effort to bridge the gap for young racers into professional racing.

The new series, which will race at Road America, The Ridge Motorsports Park, and PittRace, will have four spec-classes, all of which will use Ohvale motorcycles.

The class breakdown is as follow: 110cc (four-speed); 160cc; 190cc (racers aged up to 14 years); and 190 Adult (racers over the age of 15), with all of the races set to take place on karting tracks at the aforementioned race courses.

Come to Carmel, they said. It’ll be warm, they said. Well, maybe not so much. Last weekend’s Quail Motorcycle Gathering was a chilly affair with cloudy skies, blustery winds, and temperatures in the 50s.

The lines for ice cream were non-existent, while the line for the Espresso cart was 50 people deep. Though the weather wasn’t perfect, the event itself was awfully close.

As always, the Quail offered a great collection of vintage and custom motorcycles. This year’s show celebrated the 50th anniversary of the Norton Commando.

The marque was well represented with a large variety of Nortons on hand and also included a replica of the Norton display at the 1967 Earls Court Motorcycle Show in London.

With increased factory involvement and a competitive field the first shoots of a resurgence for motorcycle racing in United States are starting to grow.

The United States has been a consistent breeding ground for world-class racers over the last four decades, but the decline of domestic racing has hit that talent pipeline hard in recent years.

Honda’s WorldSBK star Nicky Hayden is the country’s sole representative on the Superbike grid, and with no American riders racing in MotoGP, it’s clear just how far the country has fallen from the map.

This past weekend, nearly 3,000 motorcyclists descended on the Quail Lodge and Golf Club in Carmel, California.

They didn’t go to the Quail to golf; rather, they went to see the 8th annual Quail Motorcycle Gathering. With roughly 400 motorcycles of all genres and years on display, the Quail offered something for everyone.

Unlike last year, this year’s event offered a lot more sunshine and warmer temperatures, and featured the 40th Anniversary of the superbike and a tribute to pre-1916 motorcycles.

Additionally, there were display categories for motorcycles from all parts of the globe. The quantity and quality of the machines on display was impressive.

It is with a heavy heart that we have to report the passing of Daniel Rivas (pictured after the jump) and Bernat Martinez (pictured above), both of whom died during today’s MotoAmerica Superbike/Superstock 1000 race.

The multi-bike incident occurred during the start of the race and included other riders who were more fortunate, such as Josh Chisum, Devon McDonough, & Kevin Pinkstaff.

Fan video of the start shows Rivas’ bike going down the front straight of Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca, and then lose speed relative to the rest of the starting grid.

On the ground, Rivas was ultimately struck by another rider. He was airlifted to Natividad Medical Center in Salinas, where he succumbed to injuries. He was 27.

One of the riders involved in the aftermath was Bernat Martinez, who was less fortunate than the rest. After the incident, he was transported from the raceway by ambulance to Community Hospital of the Monterey Peninsula, where he too succumbed to his injuries. He was 35.

Good news for American road racing fans, as MotoAmerica has announced its TV and online streaming agreement for the 2015 season and onward.

The multi-year agreement sees all MotoAmerica races being televised on the CBS Sports Network, during the weekend afternoons and in primetime.

Event highlights, features, and other content will be featured on Torque TV, which will serve as a central online destination for American motorcycle racing enthusiasts.

There has been a resurgence of energy in American road racing, after MotoAmerica replaced AMA Pro Road Racing as the national championship in the USA. At the helm of the resurgence is former World Champion Wayne Rainey, who is part of the KRAVE Group – the media rights holder to MotoAmerica.

Adopting class structures that fit in line with the rules and regulations found in the World Superbike Championship, MotoAmerica’s goal is once again to flood the international road racing scene with talented American riders.

Talking a little about that philosophy, with a healthy Yamaha commercial in the middle of it all, Rainey helps set the table to what American road racing fans have been waiting to hear for a long time. A stronger racing series domestically, and a path to see Americans competing at the highest levels of the sport internationally.

It’s almost the weekend, which means the end of another grueling work-week for many of our readers. With winter upon us, the release of riding a motorcycle after a long week has been diminished, if not extinguished entirely, which only adds to the no-motorcycle doldrums.

We have a little something for that though: 45 minutes of good ol’fashioned two-stroke awesomeness. The sequel to the much loved The Unrideables documentary, we bring to you The Unrideables Part 2, which picks up from its predecessor and covers the Rainey/Schwantz era of racing. Enjoy!

Now that KTM has decided to bring the RC390 to the US market, MotoAmerica has in-turn confirmed rumors that it will be partnering with KTM to bring a KTM RC390 cup series to the reborn American road racing championship.

The RC390 Cup Series will compete at select rounds of the 2015 MotoAmerica AMA/FIM American Motorcycle Road Racing Championship Series (say that three times fast), and as the name implies, will feature young racing talents on the RC390 racing platform.

Motorcycle road racing in the US looks set for a revival after its years in the wilderness. Today, the AMA announced that the rights to road racing in the US have been reacquired from the Daytona Motorsports Group, and handed to a consortium led by Wayne Rainey and Chuck Aksland. The KRAVE Group will run a new series of races in North America from 2015, under the joint auspices of the AMA and the FIM.

It has been a long and difficult few years for motorcycle road racing in the US. Since the DMG bought the rights to the AMA Superbike series, at the start of the 2008 season, the series has been in a steady decline.

Long-serving staff were replaced, circuits were dropped, classes were dropped, rejigged and renamed, and the manufacturers – or rather, the national distributors of the Japanese manufacturers – were either chased out of the series, or left over disagreements over the technical regulations.

The series reached a low point this year, when the AMA Pro Racing Superbike series held a grand total of just six races. Making things worse was the fact that just one of those rounds was in California, traditionally a very strong base for motorcycle racing in the US.

To alleviate the situation, Roadracing World’s John Ulrich stepped in to organize the Superbike Shootout, a three-race series held in California and Utah, to offer road racers something approaching a fuller season. However, DMG did not have a deal to televise the Superbike series, relying instead on live internet streaming of the events.

The decline of the series cannot be laid completely at the door of the DMG. They took over the AMA Superbike series at the start of 2008, a few months before the global financial crisis hit. That crisis had a massive impact on all forms of motorsports, and saw a great deal of sponsorship money evaporate.