The first news caused some eyebrows to rise. The second news caused some jaws to drop. Combined, they mean some big changes in the structures behind the scenes in MotoAmerica Superbike for 2020.
Consider this stat: The two teams that have won 91 of the 96 Superbike races in the MotoAmerica era will not be racing in 2020.
In a joint news release issued this weekend, Suzuki announced that it is ending its partnership with Yoshimura R&D in U.S. Superbike racing after 41 years. During that time, Yoshimura Suzuki was the most successful team in AMA Superbike, including a dominant stretch from 1999 through 2009 when the team won 10 titles in 11 years with Mat Mladin and Ben Spies (interrupted only by Nicky Hayden’s one AMA Superbike championship). Suzuki is leaving the most successful team in the sport and will have Team Hammer run its MotoAmerica Superbike effort next year. Team Hammer was formed by Roadracing World magazine editor John Ulrich and is run by his son, former racer Chris Ulrich.
Earlier, in late October, Yamaha announced that Richard Stanboli’s Attack Performance team would run Yamaha’s Superbike effort in 2020. The riders will be defending champion Cameron Beaubier and former MotoAmerica Superstock 1000 champion and Honda World Superbike rider Jake Gagne.
So the Yoshimura Suzuki and Monster Energy Yamaha teams that have won all but five Superbike races in the five years MotoAmerica has run the series will be absent in 2020. Many of the same riders will be throwing a leg over a Superbike, but below the surface, these changes are signs of the ever-shifting landscape of Superbike racing in the United States. To people who work in the business, it must feel about as reliable and stable as quicksand.
What’s it all mean?
I see only one way to interpret these seismic shifts: This is just more evidence of how weak the U.S. motorcycle industry is in general and how precarious the state of U.S. roadracing is specifically.
I spoke with several people in and around the paddock and most were quite surprised by Suzuki’s decision to part ways with Yoshimura. Nobody could offer a plausible reason for such a move other than the one I think is obvious: To spend less money. While Team Hammer is an organization with a lot of experience and a long relationship with Suzuki, you don’t dump Yoshimura, the most successful organization in the history of U.S. roadracing, for another team because you expect better execution, at least not immediately. You do it because you can cut a better deal and spend less.
Yamaha is also in cost-cutting mode. It eliminated its factory Supersport team last year and now the Superbike effort is being farmed out to Stanboli’s operation. Meanwhile, beyond racing, the parent company has relocated its headquarters from southern California to Georgia, consolidating its motorcycle operations with some of its other lines. 2019 is shaping up to be another year of negative sales growth for the U.S. motorcycle market, and the MotoAmerica paddock, by extension, is feeling the pinch.
Who’s in, who’s out for 2020
The end result of these changes appears to be a shrinkage of the Superbike grid, with two top-level rides disappearing for 2020. Team Hammer fielded one Superbike in 2019, ridden by Jake Lewis, and Yoshimura had two, for former champions Toni Elias and Josh Herrin. Those three rides will be replaced by, presumably, two Team Hammer Superbikes. The team also plans to continue its Supersport and Twins Cup efforts and also add a Stock 1000 entry. Team Hammer said their riders would be announced later, but it’s easy to see that three Superbike riders don’t fit on two Superbikes.
Meanwhile, the same situation is happening at Yamaha, where two Monster Energy Yamaha and one Attack Performance Superbike rides are being replaced by two Attack rides. The odd man out is J.D. Beach, the lone Attack Performance rider in 2019 and the only man this year to win a Superbike race, other than the four riders on the two “factory” teams. Beach has announced he’ll be racing full-time in American Flat Track for Estenson Racing.
There are almost always rumors floating around about someone forming a new team, but the challenge of paying the bills and getting a competitive Superbike team to the tracks in MotoAmerica these days is a serious one. Over at RevZilla I’ve written about teams such as Meen Motorsports and Danny Walker’s RoadRace Factory that were successful on the track but still had to pull out for financial reasons. And while it’s possible Yoshimura could be back in the future to run a top-level Superbike team for another manufacturer, such as Kawasaki or Honda, I really don’t expect to see that happen. There’s just not enough money in the U.S. motorcycle market to support the racing and justify the expenditures.
This grid shrinkage means that some talented rider(s) probably won’t have a good opportunity in 2020 and young riders trying to move up will find themselves hitting a brick ceiling. Fortunately for him, Garrett Gerloff got the chance to jump to World Superbike with the GRT Yamaha WorldSBK Junior Team, even if he had to take a pay cut to do it. If he can succeed there, he’ll be better off, in the long run. Motorcycling on the global level may have its ups and downs, but it looks a lot stronger than the scene we’re seeing here in the United States.
Did not see that coming. I remember when the haters complained about Yosh and Mladin winning all the time. Feels like Yosh and Suzuki always go together.