Cycle News

VOLUME 57 ISSUE 43 OCTOBER 27, 2020 P147 his dominance. He was hired to do a job and he did it absolutely better than anyone on the grid, and he at least had the same bike as Jake Gagne, a brilliant rider who never got anywhere near Beaubier all year until right at the very end of the season. And like Doohan famously said, "What do you want me to do? Slow down?" As obvious as it was that Beaubier had reached complete and total dominance in America, it was equally obvious his talents needed further testing. That's the mark of great humans, those who seek to improve themselves and take on new challenges. Beaubier's move to the Moto2 piranha club comes with it a massive degree of uncertainty. He is leaving a series where he has a better-than-average chance of taking the wins to race on mostly unfamiliar tracks, on a new and very different bike, in lands far away from Roseville in California, and against the fastest up-and-coming riders in the world, many of them still teenagers who will sell their mom for a race victory. Cameron has made a very respectable living racing in America—he is by far the highest paid rider in MotoAmerica (fair enough, too, considering his wins and titles), and here's hop- ing he's set himself up for what could prove some lean years as he makes tracks in arguably the most competitive championship in the world. I've often said if the goal in life is to make your living from racing a motorcycle and you're earning a great deal more rac- ing in America than you would anywhere else, then why go? It's what Mat Mladin did to great ef- fect. But I'm not a champion like Cameron and possess about the same skill in my entire body as he does in his little finger. Again, challenging themselves is what champions do. Beaubier is still young but, in racing terms, not-so-young 27 years old, the same age Casey Stoner was when he called it quits from MotoGP back in 2012. He'll be 28 by the time he joins the Moto2 grid for the first race of the 2021 season, and his last stint on a Grand Prix bike was way back in 2009, when he was teammate to a certain Marc Marquez. The age may be getting up there a little, but so, too, is his ex- perience racing and consistently beating America's best. He's one of the best superbike riders in the world in any racing series and has plenty of experience in supersport racing as well. Recently, a couple of ex- superbike stars have shown you don't need to grow up on a diet of Moto3 and pre-Moto3 bikes to be able to make it in Grand Prix racing. Britain has a long history of dominance in superbike that stretches back to the first years of WorldSBK in the late '80s, and this year there was a total of seven Brits on the grid in that championship, and all on factory machinery. Yet the man who leads the Moto2 World Championship, Sam Lowes, grew up riding in the British championship on production four-strokes, showing you don't have to come through the ultra-expensive CEV (Span- ish) championship route on pro- totype machines to get your GP racing start. Lowes' compatriots Cal Crutchlow and Jake Dixon are both ex-superbike stars and have paved the path for Beau- bier to now follow. Beaubier is old enough and smart enough not to get over- awed by the chance to race in Europe—he's been there before and got spat back out—and he arrives a much sharper man than the teenager who returned home for a stellar domestic career. He's for sure good enough to make it in GPs, and the success of Joe Roberts and in WorldSBK, his old teammate Garrett Gerloff, show the MotoAmerica talent factory is alive and kicking. For me and I'm sure anyone with a passing interest in Mo- toAmerica, the 2021 Moto2 season can't come soon enough. And for those racing in MotoAmerica next year—the king has left, so who is going to step up? CN

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