MotoAmerica had a massive year in 2025 with plenty of twists and turns and a champion returning to the dais after six years away. Let’s break down the 10 biggest things that happened in MotoAmerica this year.
Photography by Brian J. Nelson
MotoAmerica enjoyed a vintage year in 2025. With factory-supported efforts from Yamaha, Suzuki, Ducati and BMW, the Superbike class went right down to the final race of the year as Cameron Beaubier pulled a rabbit out of the championship hat to make it a sixth career Superbike crown. Beaubier also cemented his place at the top of the all-time AMA road-racing winner’s list, his record now 90 wins with no signs of slowing down.
Then, there were the support classes and Matthew Scholtz’s march to a second straight MotoAmerica Supersport Championship and a first on the new Yamaha YZF-R9; Andrew Lee took a third and final career Stock 1000 trophy despite the onslaught of teammate Jayson Uribe and the Honda of JD Beach as the class winds up for good; Kyle Wyman took back the Mission King of the Baggers title with force on the factory Harley-Davidson; James Rispoli came good on the KWR Harley-Davidson for the Super Hooligan title; we saw a new generation hit the track on identical Kramer APX-350 MA machines in the new MotoAmerica Talent Cup; Kira Knebel came up trumps in the Royal Enfield. Build. Train. Race series; and Alessandro Di Mario put everyone on notice with titles in the Talent Cup and the Twins Cup, his third title in two years.
Di Mario’s Title March | #10
Alessandro Di Mario put everyone on notice that he is one of the hottest young prospects in American racing after the Italian-born Kentuckian decimated the field in the Twins Cup category for the second year in a row.
Riding for the steamrolling Robem Engineering Aprilia outfit, Di Mario took three races to get going but scored the win in race two at Barber Motorsports Park, going on a tear to sweep the next three rounds and wrap up the title with a round and a race to spare at VIR. Di Mario finished either first or second in every race of the season, bar the final race in New Jersey, where he came home seventh.
It was a similar story in the new MotoAmerica Talent Cup. Di Mario had some stiffer competition from the likes of Bodie Page, Hank Vossberg and Sam Drane, all taking race wins, but the results were the same: Di Mario marched away with his third national title in two seasons.
Di Mario steps up to Supersport in 2026 with the Rahal Ducati outfit, and there’ll be lots of eyes watching to see if the 16-year-old can continue his ascension.
The Real Kyle Wyman Stands Up | #9
Australian Troy Herfoss upset more than a few people when he arrived in 2024 and used the factory Indian Motorcycle Challenger to promptly walk away with the Mission King of The Baggers title at the first time of asking.
None were more pissed than Kyle Wyman, but the former champion and his Harley-Davidson x Dynojet Factory Racing team turned things around in commanding fashion as his archrival Herfoss’ title charge started to falter.
Wyman’s superior machinery certainly helped, but the Arizona resident kept it almost always on the blacktop when others around him went down or suffered mechanical gremlins. The result was a dominant championship win with a round and a race to spare, his third such success in the Baggers class.
A notable mention must also go out to former number one Hayden Gillim, who came on strong at the end of the year on the RevZilla/Motul/Vance & Hines Harley-Davidson, with late-season wins at Mid-Ohio, Circuit of the Americas and New Jersey Motorsports Park.
Also gaining some late-season attention was Cameron Petersen, who took his first career Baggers win in the final round at New Jersey.
Corey Alexander and the Arch 2S-R were definitely the best dressed in 2025.
Movie Stars Go Racing in Super Hooligan | #8
Motorcycle racing has always attracted some high-profile names, but few have quite the clout of mega star Keanu Reeves. The lifetime rider has been a regular in two- and four-wheel racing paddocks around the world and is the part-owner of Arch Motorcycles with Gard Hollinger, a custom motorcycle brand that builds ultra-exclusive and rare machines out of their base just around the corner from LAX in Los Angeles.
But that wasn’t enough for the pair, who decided to go head-on into the MotoAmerica Super Hooligan competition with a beautiful, hand-built machine featuring their own chassis and engine and piloted by AMA veteran Corey Alexander.
The air-cooled machine in striking pink gradually got quicker as the season progressed, to the point where it and Alexander were fighting for the podium at Mid-Ohio’s final round. Don’t count them out for a full-on title assault in 2026.
Lee Makes it a Triple | #7
Andrew Lee’s career has been one of the most up-and-down in recent American racing history. A former two-time champion in the Stock 1000 class on a Kawasaki, Lee has spent much of the last five years in the racing wilderness, picking up odd rides here and there but finally landing on his feet in the OrangeCat BMW team for 2025.
Lee made good on the opportunity in what will be the final year of the category, using the BMW M 1000 RR to take four race wins from a possible 10 and fend off the challenge of teammate Jayson Uribe and the Real Steel Honda of JD Beach, who was having a revival year with consistent podiums and late-season wins.
As such, Lee will go down as the most successful rider in the history of the MotoAmerica Superstock 1000/Stock 1000 championship with three title wins.
Unfortunately, at the time of writing, Lee announced he’s split from OrangeCat Racing, who will be making the step up to the premier Superbike category in 2026. There’s no word yet on where Lee will be riding next year.
The Kids Are Alright | #6
After the MotoAmerica Junior Cup effectively became a one-make Kawasaki Ninja 400/500 Cup over the past few seasons, MotoAmerica went official and scrapped the class and installed the new Talent Cup, the field riding identical Kramer APX-350 MA machines.
The series also gave select riders the chance to try out for the 2026 Red Bull Rookies Cup, with race winners Hank Vossberg and Bodie Page, along with Ella Dreher, Kensei Matsudaira, Mikey Lou Sanchez, Mahdi Salem and Joshua Raymond Jr getting the call-up to try out.
As expected, the Talent Cup races were often incredibly intense, with many encounters seeing the top five cross the line within a second of each other. New stars were uncovered in Australian Page, compatriot Sam Drane and Vossberg, and the series saw the road-racing debut of the three-time AMA AFT Singles Champion, Kody Kopp, who competed for none other than Kenny Roberts.
The Talent Cup was an ambitious undertaking by Kramer Motorcycles USA. The small importer with a skeleton crew based out of West Fargo, North Dakota, in conjunction with Kramer Motorcycles in Munich, Germany, supplied a brand-new motorcycle in the APX-350 MA for the series in what was the brand’s first MotoAmerica appearance.
Yamaha’s New R9 Wins on Debut | #5
Yamaha had a lot to live up to in 2025 with the YZF-R6 being replaced by the all-new, three-cylinder YZF-R9 as part of the Next Generation Supersport rules.
The R6 was one of the most successful motorcycles in Yamaha’s history and the reigning MotoAmerica Supersport Champion in the hands of Mathew Scholtz, the South African moving back to Supersport in 2024 after a career on 1000cc machinery in the Superstock 1000/Stock 1000 and Superbike categories.
The newness of the R9 didn’t seem to matter, though, as Scholtz took his Strack Racing R9 to a comfortable 2.9-second win in race one at Barber over archrival PJ Jacobsen on the Rahal Ducati.
To back things up, veteran Josh Hayes used his wet-weather prowess to take race two, again over Jacobsen.
The results would prove a good omen for Scholtz and the R9, who would romp clear to a second straight MotoAmerica Supersport Championship win in 2025. The R9 would also enjoy success in WorldSSP, with Stefano Manzi and Can Oncu making it a 1-2 for the factory in 2025.
Double Podium for the M4 Boys | #4
The Ulrich family-run M4 Ecstar Suzuki team had reason to celebrate at VIR. In what was a first for the team, which has been in American road-racing paddocks in one form or another for over 40 years, Sean Dylan Kelly and Richie Escalante gave boss, former racer Chris Ulrich, a reason to celebrate by taking second and third in race two. It was the team’s best result in the MotoAmerica era.
The result was the culmination of a season of steady progress as Kelly gradually worked his way up to be a permanent top-five contender after a rough first few rounds, and Escalante had a watershed year after his injury-plagued 2024 season. With a new bike on the way for 2026 and some of the series’ top riders jumping ship to new machinery, next year could yield yet more good times for Suzuki’s plucky AMA team.
JD Beach Grabs Honda’s First Podium in 16 Years | #3
Honda has struggled recently in MotoAmerica. With limited interest in the CBR1000RR over the past decade, there hasn’t been much to celebrate.
That was until best friends JD Beach and Hayden Gillim teamed up in the Real Steel Honda team. Over the season, the team drew increasing support directly from the Honda Racing Corporation in Japan, and the CBR1000RR-R SP got quicker and quicker, Beach coming within two points of the Stock 1000 Championship win.
But more was to come as Beach took third place in race one at Mid-Ohio, the result marking the first podium for the Honda factory since way back in 2009 when Neil Hodgson took third at Daytona. Thus, a 16-year AMA/MotoAmerica podium drought was ended.
Gillim decided to get in on the podium action as well by taking third in the final race of the season at New Jersey.
Bobby Fong’s Championship Capitulation | #2
It was all looking so good. Bobby Fong and the Attack Performance Progressive Yamaha Racing YZF-R1 were in perfect harmony for much of the 2025 season. Coming into the final round in New Jersey, all Fong had to do was keep it upright and out of trouble, and he’d be crowned MotoAmerica Superbike champion for the first time in his career.
He started well, winning race one at a canter, which gave him a 13-point lead with two races remaining. Then it all went wrong.
Sitting second on the final lap of race two, Fong was close behind leader Josh Herrin, who Fong believes slowed by rolling off the throttle in the turn 3b/3c chicane, and the result was Fong grabbing a handful of front brake to not run into the number one Ducati and down he went, his championship hopes smashed in an instant.
To compound the situation, Fong crashed out of race three, dropping him to third in the final standings.
Beaubier Pulls it Out of the Bag | #1
We all know Cameron Beaubier is one of the greatest Americans to strap on a road-racing helmet, but we doubt even he thought he would lift a sixth MotoAmerica Superbike crown heading into the final round at New Jersey.
An eight-point deficit to fellow NorCal man Bobby Fong ballooned to 13 after race one, but sometimes Lady Luck gives you a little wink and hoists you back into the fight as Fong crashed out and handed Beaubier a seven-point advantage heading into the title-deciding race three.
And when Fong crashed out, all Beaubier had to do was bring the BMW home.
Beaubier did just that, taking the race and title win as Herrin leapfrogged the desolate Fong into second place in the series.
It marked the first time since Reg Pridmore won the first AMA Superbike Championship in 1976 that a BMW had hoisted the ultimate prize in American road racing and proved that no matter the odds, you never give up until the checkered flag.CN
Click here to read the MotoAmerica 2025 Top 10 in the Cycle News Digital Edition Magazine.
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