VOLUME 57 ISSUE 50 DECEMBER 15, 2020 P71
So, this first test set for
Jerez on Thanksgiving Week-
end, a time to try the motor-
cycle and meet and greet the
American Racing people, huh?
Yeah, so I'm flying out on
Sunday to go test next week with
my new team American Racing in
Moto2 in MotoGP. It's a two-day
test on Thursday and Friday and
hopefully the weather holds off
and we get a couple good days in.
And yeah, it's huge for me to be
able to get on a bike before we go
into Christmas and New Years and
stuff like that. It'll provide me with a
good perspective on things going
into next year and a chance to
meet the team and all that. It'll be
cool. I don't really know anyone
on the team yet, but I know Eitan
and I know John Hopkins. Eitan
is a great guy. When we went to
dinner with him at Laguna Seca
when we signed the deal and ev-
erything like that. Him and his wife
are great. They're just finishing up
the season at Portimao in Portugal
this week and then the team will
head over to Spain and I'll meet
them there and put in a couple of
days on the bike and spend the
week in Spain. Should be good.
So you know John Hop-
kins? John was a very talent-
ed GP racer.
I do know Hopkins a little bit.
He's a great guy. I looked up to
him as a kid coming up. He was an
American GP guy. Him and Nicky
[Hayden] and Ben [Spies] and stuff
like that. It'll be really cool to have
him helping out, and to have an
extra set of eyes, it'll be good.
Five MotoAmerica Superbike
Championships to your name.
Mission accomplished here in
the United States?
Yeah, it's honestly still so crazy
thinking about all this. Yamaha and
I have won five championships
together, and it doesn't really seem
real. I'm not old by any means. I'm
only 27, but to win five champion-
ships before the age of 27 is pretty
cool and a pretty cool achievement
that I'll always look back on. The
chapter that I've had with Yamaha
in my career has been so amaz-
ing. I started with them back at the
end of 2011 going into 2012 and
was riding 600s for them and then
now eight years later to look back
on everything and six champion-
ships and a bunch of race wins is
pretty awesome. For me, for what
I need to do it, I got a shot at the
world stage and I'm going to take
it. I'm ready to go see what I've
got on the world stage and I feel
like it's just time for me to grow
as a rider and as a person and
everything like that.
Obviously, it was a bizarre
and trying season with the
pandemic and all the chaos
and uncertainty it caused on
so many levels. When you take
a breath and take a step back
on it all, what's your take on
the MotoAmerica season?
The year started off really
weird with Covid and everything.
Also, and a lot of people don't
know this, but I was riding on a
minibike track in my back yard,
and I tore my knee up pretty
good and ended up having a
knee injury and had to go have
surgery. Honestly, it worked out
Career superbike rival Toni Elias
congratulates the 2020 champion,
Beaubier. Those two have put on
some of the hardest racing ever
seen in American Superbike, making
Beaubier all the more battle-hardened
for Moto2—the class where Elias was
the inaugural world champion.
