 The official MotoAmerica Logo | |
| Category | Motorcycle sport |
|---|---|
| Jurisdiction | North America |
| Headquarters | Irvine, California |
| President | Wayne Rainey |
| Official website | |
| www | |
| Current champions | Josh Herrin |
|---|---|
 Current season | |
MotoAmerica is the organization that promotes and organizes the AMA Road Racing series. Formally known as the MotoAmerica AMA/FIM North American Road Racing Championship, it is sanctioned by theAmerican Motorcyclist Association (AMA) and theFédération Internationale de Motocyclisme (FIM).[1] MotoAmerica is the preeminent professional motorcycle racing organization in the United States, currently featuring eight separate classes of road racing, including Superbike and Supersport.
MotoAmerica's primary goal is to reinvigorate motorcycle road racing in North America, and send its riders to top-level international championships. MotoAmerica is an affiliate of the KRAVE Group, a partnership that includesWayne Rainey, Chuck Aksland, Terry Karges, and Richard Varner. The KRAVE Group was formed with the intent to purchase the commercial rights to the AMA Road Racing Series.[2] In 2015, MotoAmerica became the organizer and promoter of the AMA Road Racing series, and all championships are now held under the MotoAmerica name.[3]
MotoAmerica can trace its history back to the beginning of production based motorcycle road racing in the United States. In 1976, the American Motorcycle Association (AMA) began sanctioning and organizing road racing series such as theAMA Superbike Championship. Originally these AMA road racing series were held at the Grand National events alongside thedirt track andmotocross events.[4]
Through the succeeding years, the popularity of road racing grew and necessitated a split from the Grand National Championship. A separate Road Racing Championship was created for the 1986 season.[5] Soon after, additional production based road racing series were added to the AMA Road Racing Championship, such as the 750 Supersport and600 Supersport series. The various AMA Road Racing Series continued to grow in popularity and experienced a period of great prosperity through the 1990’s. Competition, manufacturer support, and fan attendance were high during this period. Riders coming from the AMA series commonly went on to race inGran Prix andWorld Superbike races.[6]
The AMA Road Racing Championship continued to be organized and sanctioned by the AMA until, in 2008 Rob Dingman, the CEO of AMA announced that he was selling the sanctioning, promotional and management rights of AMA Pro Racing to the Daytona Motorsports Group. The leadership of AMA at the time wanted to distance themselves from their racing activities to focus on being a membership organization and providing membership benefits. Rob Dingman claimed that the AMA was facing too much controversy as the sanctioning body for the racing series and that they needed to return to their core values.[7] To accomplish this, the AMA chose the Daytona Motorsports Group (DMG) led byJim France, the CEO ofNASCAR and Roger Edmonson, President of theGrand American Road Race Series, to handle all of the commercial aspects of their racing series.
Unfortunately, the leadership at DMG ended up doing a poor job operating and marketing the road racing series, and the timing of the 2008 financial crisis did not help matters.[8] Many longstanding factory teams dropped out of the series for the 2009 season and along with them, sponsors and fans left the sport as well.[9] The number of races per season was cut in half, going from twelve in 2009 to six in 2014, with even fewer receiving television coverage.[10] Despite some intermittent factory involvement from BMW and KTM, the number of Superbike entrants per race continued to fall, with only 15 motorcycles competing at Road America in 2014.[11]
Troubled with how DMG was operating the road racing series, the KRAVE group was formed. KRAVE is a partnership that includes three-time Grand Prix World Champion, two-time AMA Superbike Champion, and AMA Hall of Famer,Wayne Rainey; former vice president of motorsports operations at theCircuit of The Americas, and former managing director of Team Roberts in the Grand Prix World Championship, Chuck Aksland; executive director of thePetersen Automotive Museum, Terry Karges; and energy sector investor and businessman, Richard Varner. KRAVE approached the AMA in 2013 with an intent to purchase the commercial rights to the road racing series.[12] Through “complicated” negotiations, the AMA reacquired the sanctioning rights to all AMA road racing series from the Daytona Motorsports Group, and sold the commercial rights to KRAVE. In 2014, it was announced that MotoAmerica, the affiliate of KRAVE, was going to be organizing and promoting the road racing series starting in 2015.[3] The classes inherited at the time from DMG included: Superbike, Superstock 1000, Supersport, Superstock 600, and the KTM RC 390 Cup.
For its inaugural season as the series organizer, MotoAmerica, in consultation with the AMA, chose to align the multiple existing racing classes closely with those used by the FIM. This was done to simplify the work that manufacturers must do to compete in multiple series, and therefore attract them back to North American road racing.[13] The 2015 season expanded the calendar with 10 rounds, seeing races return to many fan favorite tracks from the past. Importantly, MotoAmerica established television broadcasting agreements with CBS Sports to air the full season of races.[14] Due to the low number of entrants in the Superbike class, the Stock 1000 class was run concurrently in order to fill out the grid.[15] Similarly, the Superstock 600 class was run in the same race as the Supersport class.[16]
The series crowned its first champions in 2015; withCameron Beaubier winning the Superbike championship,Jake Gagne winning Superstock 1000,J. D. Beach winning Supersport,Joe Roberts winning Superstock 600 and Gage McAllister winning theKTMRC 390 Cup.[17]
In 2018, MotoAmerica restructured many of its classes as the series had gained enough entrants to fill a moderately sized grid (16-18 machines as opposed to as few as 9 in previous seasons) for each class. MotoAmerica recognized that running multiple classes in each race was confusing to fans, and the rules necessary to keep the classes competitive with each other resulted in them being too similar. The Superstock 1000 bikes, meant to be less modified and therefore slower than the Superbike class, ended up having motorcycles that were competing near the front of the Superbike class at every round. The relationship between Supersport and Superstock 600 has similar problems.[18]
The Superstock 1000 class was replaced by the Stock 1000 class. This new class differed from the class it replaced by permitting very few modifications from the showroom specifications of the road-legal machines. Lights, indicators, stands, and mirrors must be removed and a race fairing may be fitted, but the use of expensive replacement engines and certain other parts is prohibited. This ruleset was designed to make the class more accessible and approachable in order to get more riders on 1000cc machines. The goal of Stock 1000 is to be the feeder class to the Superbike class.[19] These rule changes also were to encourage the existing Superstock 1000 teams, with their already highly built bikes to make the jump up to the Superbike class.[18]
The Superstock 600 class was also dropped, with its place on the program being taken by the new Twins Cup class. In contrast to the Stock 1000 series, this is a fairly open class where development and modifications are allowed with a great degree of freedom as long as a twin-cylinder machine is used. These machines produce similar performance to the Superstock 600 bikes they replace, but allow the use of the large variety of two cylinder sport bikes that had become popular in the club racing scene.[18] The Supersport class rules were modified to be somewhat in between those of the old Superstock 600 class and Supersport class. This was to make it easy for the existing Superstock 600 teams to make the step up to Supersport.[20]
The last class change for 2018 was the introduction of the Junior Cup class as a replacement for the KTM RC 390 Cup. This new class is open to all manufacturers of small bore sportsbikes, instead of being a spec series. Encouraged by the success of similar series at the world championship level, this championship was introduced as a new entry-level class with a maximum age limit of 25 years old.[20] All of these new classes now competed in their own race events, bringing clarity to the differentiation between each class. With 5 different races occurring per event instead of the previous 3, fans were able to enjoy the additional racing as well.
In 2019, MotoAmerica chose to bring all television production of its TV coverage in house. This move allowed MotoAmerica to own the rights to all of the content produced from every race weekend, and as a result, they became able to distribute content on far more platforms than was possible before.[10] Streaming options were introduced including Youtube and MotoAmerica’s own paid streaming service MotoAmerica Live +. Bringing the TV production in-house proved to be a successful decision for MotoAmerica. Combined viewership numbers for the first two rounds in 2020 increased fourfold from the previous year, reaching record highs for the organization.[21]
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In 2020 it was announced that a new event would take place at the MotoAmerica Superbike Speedfest At Monterey. This invitational event, titled King of the Baggers, allowed highly customized American touring motorcycles to compete in a race.[22] Touring fairings and hard side bags are required as part of the ruleset, but otherwise these machines were heavily modified for racing.[23] The King of the Baggers invitational proved to be very popular with fans, so much so that it became an official class and was added to the 2021 calendar as a three round championship.[24][25] In the following years, King of the Baggers continued to grow in popularity and has become a staple class in MotoAmerica. As of the 2024 season, the King of the Baggers class appeared at eight of the 10 rounds of the season with an additional exhibition race at a MotoGP event.[17]
For the 2025 season, the Junior Cup class was dropped and replaced by the Talent Cup. This new junior class is a spec-racing class in which riders aged 14 to 21 compete on purpose-built Krämer APX-350 MA motorcycles.[26] The shift back to spec racing is to align the MotoAmerica junior class with the other Talent cups that exist around the world, in order to better prepare young riders to eventually compete at the highest level of motorsport.
MotoAmerica's premier race class, Superbike showcases the top road racers aboard top-of-the-line, highly modified motorcycles capable of speeds approaching 200 miles per hour.[27] Engine configurations and minimum weight requirements are listed below:
| # of Cylinders | Engine Displacement | Typical Power | Minimum Weight |
|---|---|---|---|
| 3 - 4 | 750 - 1000cc | 220 hp | 370.5 lbs |
| 2 | 850 - 1200cc |
Rider Age Limit: 18 - 55 years old
Motorcycles that compete in this class:BMW S1000RR,Ducati Panigale V4 R,Honda CBR1000RR,Kawasaki Ninja ZX-10R,Suzuki GSX-R1000,Yamaha YZF-R1
A feeder class for Superbike, Stock 1000 gives MotoAmerica riders the opportunity to gain experience aboard 1,000cc motorcycles with an eye toward eventually moving up to Superbike.[28] Engine configurations and minimum weight requirements are listed below:
| # of Cylinders | Engine Displacement | Typical Power | Minimum Weight |
|---|---|---|---|
| 3 - 4 | 750 - 1000cc | 195 hp | 374 lbs |
| 2 | 850 - 1200cc |
Rider Age Limit: 18 - 55 years old
Motorcycles that compete in this class:BMW S1000RR,Honda CBR1000RR,Kawasaki Ninja ZX-10R,Suzuki GSX-R1000,Yamaha YZF-R1
MotoAmerica's middleweight race class, Supersport features the series’ rising stars competing aboard production-based motorcycles.[29] Engine configurations and minimum weight requirements are listed below:
| # of Cylinders | Engine Displacement | Typical Power | Minimum Weight |
|---|---|---|---|
| 4 | 400 - 636cc | 130 hp | 354.9 lbs |
| 3 | 500 - 890cc | ||
| 2 | 600 - 955cc |
Rider Age Limit: 16 - 55 years old
Motorcycles that compete in this class:Ducati Panigale V2,Kawasaki Ninja ZX-6R,Suzuki GSX-R750,Yamaha YZF-R6,Honda CBR600RR,Triumph Street Triple RS 765
Putting middleweight, twin-cylinder motorcycles in the spotlight, Twins Cup enables regional and club racers from around the country to step up to the MotoAmerica series and compete on a national level.[30] Engine configurations and minimum weight requirements are listed below:
| # of Cylinders | Engine Displacement | Typical Power | Minimum Weight |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2 | 600 - 800cc | 100 hp | 338 lbs |
Rider Age Limit: 15 - 55
Motorcycles that compete in this class:Aprilia RS 660,Yamaha YZF-R7,Suzuki GSX-8R,Kawasaki Ninja 650,Suzuki SV650
Modified touring motorcycles from Harley Davidson and Indian built for road racing. Motorcycles must feature touring fairings and hard side bags, but otherwise feature aftermarket suspension and highly tuned engines. The following models race in this class
Minimum Weight: 620 pounds
MotoAmerica's entry-level race class, Talent Cup features the series’ youngest riders competing aboard spec, purpose-built Krämer APX-350 MA motorcycles.[31] Set to mirror other Road to MotoGP Talent Cups around the world, this class is meant to prepare young riders to advance to the upper echelons of motorcycles racing. Motorcycles specifications are listed below:
This class features motorcycles from various disciplines, along with a broad set of rules meant to bring new riders and brands into road racing. The MotoAmerica Championship in this class features 750cc and up, air- or water-cooled, 2 cylinders, 125 horsepower or less, minimum weight of 420 pounds, no bodywork, stock frames, high-bar motorcycles. Electric motorcycles are also eligible for competition. Minimum Weight in this class is 397 pounds
Engine Configurations:
Originally equipped, air-cooled, 2-cylinder, minimum displacement of 750cc, normally aspirated or forced induction.
Originally equipped, water-cooled, 2-cylinder, minimum displacement of 750cc, normally aspirated.
Street-legal production motorcycles with single electric motors. No motocross or dual-sport-type electric motorcycles allowed. All electric motorcycles must be pre-approved for competition before the event or season.[32]
Previously known asSuperstock 1000 from 2015–2017
| Season | Rider | Manufacturer |
|---|---|---|
| 2015 |  Jacob Gagne |  Yamaha |
| 2016 | Josh Herrin | Yamaha |
| 2017 |  Mathew Scholtz | Yamaha |
| 2018 | Andrew Lee | Kawasaki |
| 2019 | Andrew Lee | Kawasaki |
| 2020 | Cameron Peterson | Suzuki |
| 2021 | Jake Lewis | Suzuki |
| 2022 | Corey Alexander |  BMW |
| 2023 | Hayden Gillim | Suzuki |
| 2024 | Hayden Gillim | Honda |
| Season | Rider | Manufacturer |
|---|---|---|
| 2015 | J. D. Beach | Yamaha |
| 2016 | Garrett Gerloff | Yamaha |
| 2017 | Garrett Gerloff | Yamaha |
| 2018 | J. D. Beach | Yamaha |
| 2019 | Bobby Fong | Suzuki |
| 2020 |  Richie Escalante | Kawasaki |
| 2021 | Sean Dylan Kelly | Suzuki |
| 2022 | Josh Herrin |  Ducati |
| 2023 |  Xavi Forés | Ducati |
| 2024 | Mathew Scholtz | Yamaha |
Previously known asSuperstock 600 from 2015–2017
| Season | Rider | Manufacturer |
|---|---|---|
| 2015 | Joe Roberts | Yamaha |
| 2016 | Bryce Prince | Yamaha |
| 2017 | Jason Aguilar | Yamaha |
| 2018 | Chris Parrish | Suzuki |
| 2019 |  Alex Dumas | Suzuki |
| 2020 | Rocco Landers | Suzuki |
| 2021 | Kaleb De Keyrel | Aprilia |
| 2022 | Blake Davis | Yamaha |
| 2023 | Blake Davis | Yamaha |
| 2024 | Alessandro Di Mario | Aprilia |
Previously known asKTM RC 390 Cup from 2015–2017
| Season | Rider | Manufacturer |
|---|---|---|
| 2015 | Gage McAllister |  KTM |
| 2016 | Brandon Paasch | KTM |
| 2017 | Benjamin Smith | KTM |
| 2018 | Alex Dumas | KTM |
| 2019 | Rocco Landers | Kawasaki |
| 2020 | Rocco Landers | Kawasaki |
| 2021 | Tyler Scott | KTM |
| 2022 | Cody Wyman | Kawasaki |
| 2023 | Avery Dreher | Kawasaki |
| 2024 | Matthew Chapin | Kawasaki |
| Season | Rider | Manufacturer |
|---|---|---|
| 2021 | Kyle Wyman | Harley-Davidson |
| 2022 | Tyler O’Hara | Indian Motorcycle |
| 2023 | Hayden Gillim | Harley-Davidson |
| 2024 |  Troy Herfoss | Indian Motorcycle |