Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles
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VOL. 55 ISSUE 41 OCTOBER 16, 2018 P125 ers, but the numbers are still way down compared to pre-recession numbers. At its peak, riders like Mat Mladin, Ricky Carmichael, James Stewart, Ben Spies and Miguel Duhamel were in the mil- lion-dollars-per-year-plus category. Insiders say Mladin was at one time the highest paid motorcycle racer in America, rumored to be making four million per year! And beside the money they earned from salaries, endorse- ments and purse money, some of the perks were pretty amazing. When Kevin Windham raced fac- tory Honda in the mid-2000s, his contract called for him to be flown to and from the races on chartered planes. He would often sleep in his own bed the night of a national, allowing for an extra day of train- ing while most spent a full day in airports traveling commercial. The top supercross and moto- cross riders can still make a million- plus annually with endorsements and purse money, but they work hard for the money with essentially a year-round season, with only a precious few months off in early winter. Motocross salaries have not suffered as drastic of a downturn as has been experienced in road rac- ing. The main reason is there are still multiple factory and factory-sup- port teams in the championships. In the 1970s, the biggest money to be made in motorcycle racing domestically was in the AMA Grand National Championship. Tobacco money bolstered the pay and riders earned huge bonuses. Things went off the rails quickly though after to- bacco money left in the mid-1990s, but in American Flat Track, today things are looking up for riders with the competition between Indian and Harley-Davidson. Pay is still lagging behind other champion- ships, but with Kawasaki and KTM rumored to coming into the series with factory-backed efforts, flat track could, once again, be a good place to make a living. In road racing here, the money rides are precious few. You essen- tially have four factory seats in Mo- toAmerica Superbike with Yamaha and Suzuki. Both companies also have support squads, but rumors in the paddock are that at least Yamaha is going to pull back some of its support in superpsort racing. The top paid riders in Mo- toAmerica are Cameron Beaubier and Toni Elias. Best guestimates are that they are both making in the mid-six figures. Superbike racer Roger Hayden was the last of the riders who raced in the big-money era of road racing in this country. He just retired last month after 20 years of professional racing. "I can retire from racing and not work anymore if I don't want to," Hayden said. "That's not to say I don't want to work, I do, but I have the luxury of not needing to work. I'm afraid it may be a longtime before we see that again in this paddock." But if their money is managed well, and they resist the temptation to spend money on things that are not good investments, today's top riders can reach that goal of finan- cial security after racing. One leading personal manager told me that he felt four million was a nice goal to shoot for. He said if riders could race long enough and put away that amount of money, even with conservative investments they should be able to live a decent lifestyle the rest of their lives. The change to the new nor- mal in road racing came quickly and caused many riders to retire perhaps before they'd hoped, says four-time AMA Superbike Cham- pion Josh Hayes. "The turnover was big," he explained. "It wasn't a gradual turn- over. All of a sudden one day it was like me, Larry [Pegram] and Roger were all that were left. The three of us were able to manage it for a lot of years, for six, seven years. We were in here for a while. Now it's just come to a time that all of a sudden all of us are gone, and it's going to be the new generation." Hayden thinks MotoAmerica is making all the right moves. He be- lieves it's possible that big paydays for more riders could come back into the series. "It's just going to take more fac- tories to come back into it," Hayden said. "If you get Honda, Kawasaki and Ducati factory teams back in the paddock, along with Suzuki and Yamaha, the demand for the best riders is going to go up again and so will the money." CN Subscribe to nearly 50 years of Cycle News Archive issues: www.CycleNews.com/Archives