Cycle News

R eal estate mogul and Ameri- can Racing Team Owner, Eitan Butbul, knows the 2022 season presents his best chance yet of putting an American back on top in grand prix racing. Now in his fourth season as a team owner, Butbul has had to face some of the harsh realities of life as a grand prix outsider in recent years, but the success enjoyed with the team's first American rider, Joe Roberts, and now Beaubier, has opened some paddock eyes that his team is seriously intent on staying for the long term. "On a personal level, I didn't come from racing, and I got into this situation to own the team not by mistake, but without too much attention to manage the team," Butbul said. "But we took it, and we changed the name to American Rac- ing and said, if we do it, we do it right. So, the first year was difficult for many reasons. One of them was new guy coming to the neighbor- hood. Who is this guy? What is he doing? Where did he come from? He's not from racing, not from any- thing, and then he's running a team and calling it American Racing. "I saw the feeling from the paddock, other teams, sponsors, ev- erybody looking at me like, what's going on? But I think when we finished '19 and I got John Hopkins to work with us, and we showed in 2020 with Joe [Roberts] we could get some good results, it showed we were serious. "Also, the appearance, the way we look and present ourselves and everything about what we do is se- rious. I think the attitude changed completely. I feel it. I think Dorna look at us in a different way. I think they understand that our inten- tion is to stay and to do something good, and obviously my goal is to win the championship with an American rider." "We knew it was not going to be easy for Cameron to adapt from superbike to Moto2, but we saw in some races he is a hell of a racer. He got some good results and I think now he understands the bike better, from the front tire, the brak- ing, the chassis, mainly because it's a big difference than the superbike. He showed, especially in Austin, that he can fight to be on the top. Not just to be on the top for a few laps, but fight all the way to the end. So, we think with him there's a good chance that we can be in the top five most of the year. "At the same time, we have Sean that came straight from MotoAmer- ica. He's young and a rookie, but we manage his academy. He's part of the American Racing Academy pro- gram. We built him a bike last year as soon as he finished MotoAmerica. "He came to Europe with his dad and did 11 or 12 track days. He did close to 4000 kilometers on the bike. This gave him a huge, huge step and it showed when he came to the of- ficial test when he finished ninth. "The feedback that we got from him, the big difference the first day on the bike, and after he finished 4000 kilometers of private testing that he did, was amazing. It's huge. So, it's also proof to us that we can- not just bring American and just throw them onto the bike, start the season testing and let's go race. We need to give them previous experi- ence riding Moto2 bike, either in the U.S. or also in Europe before they can come and jump on the bike for real. So, this was a good step. We think he can be competitive." THE BOSS MAN EITAN BUTBUL ON HIS TWO CHARGERS AND GETTING RESPECT IN MOTO2 Eitan Butbul's earned the respect of the paddock and is looking to put the next American on the Grand Prix winner's step. Early success with Joe Roberts in 2020 proved the American Racing Team's formula is working. VOLUME 59 ISSUE 5 FEBRUARY 1, 2022 P75

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