GP Tech has submitted a wild card entry for the FIM Moto2 World Championship event to be held August 26-28 at the Red Bull Indianapolis Grand Prix at Indianapolis Motor Speedway with plans to run 17-year-old American Jake Gagne on an updated Team GP Tech FOGI Racing FTR M210 machine.
“I sent the paperwork in today,” GP Tech owner Geoff Maloney told Roadracingworld.com Monday.
Last year Maloney teamed up with FOGI Racing and FTR to enter American Jason DiSalvo as a wild card in the Moto2 race at Indy, and DiSalvo rewarded the collaboration by charging from 27th on the grid to 9th at the finish. And just as the project gave DiSalvo the opportunity to turn around his challenging 2010 season, Maloney hopes the same opportunity will add some momentum to Gagne’s young but promising career.
“He seems like a great guy to work with,” said Maloney, who is also an active road racer. “He seems like he’s going to do well, and I want to provide him with the opportunity to do that.”
After a successful motocross career, Gagne took advantage of the 2008 Red Bull AMA U.S. Rookies Cup program to switch from racing on dirt to racing on asphalt. After starting the year with his first-ever road race, Gagne finished the season by winning two Red Bull AMA U.S. Rookies Cup races (Road Atlanta, Indianapolis Motor Speedway) and getting the best result of any American in the Red Bull Riders Cup events at Indianapolis (8th) and in Valencia, Spain (3rd).
That earned Gagne an invitation to compete in the 2009 Red Bull MotoGP Rookies Cup Championship, in which he placed 6th in points thanks to three trips to the podium and five top-five finishes. Then last year Gagne really started figuring things out and won four races and captured the 2010 Red Bull MotoGP Rookies Cup Championship.
Some of the opportunities that opened up for previous Red Bull MotoGP Rookies Cup Champions, however, did not materialize for Gagne. His personal sponsors Red Bull, Alpinestars, Arai, American Supercamp and Kevin Schwantz School stuck with him, and he eventually found a Harris Promo machine to race full-time in the CEV/Spanish Moto2 National Championship. Gagne is currently tied for ninth (after two rounds) in the Championship with a best result of fifth at Jerez. But a wild card ride on a proven motorcycle with a knowledgeable team on a track he knows is exactly what Gagne was hoping for.
“I’m excited to get on the FTR. I’ve heard good things about it. I know with the crew we’ll have we’ll have a really good bike,” Gagne told Roadracingworld.com in a telephone call Monday from Spain, where he is preparing for round three of the CEV/Spanish Moto2 Championship. “I’m really, really excited. It’s a huge opportunity for me to get a chance to race in a World Championship race. It’s awesome. I can’t thank Geoff Maloney, FTR, FOGI Racing and all my sponsors enough. It should be really exciting. So hopefully we can put in a good result.”
“We did this whole project as a long-term goal. We want to continue to make this available,” said Maloney. “There is a second [wild card] slot available for the race, and FTR has told me they can provide a second bike. So there is a possibility we could run a two-rider team with two FTR chassis.”
Maloney said parties interested in trying to put together a second GP Tech/FOGI Racing/FTR wild card Moto2 entry for the Red Bull Indianapolis Grand Prix should contact him immediately at [email protected] or by calling GP Tech at (269) 671-4915.