Copyright 2017, Roadracing World Publishing, Inc.

By David Swarts

MotoAmerica will make several changes to its classes and class structures for the 2018 season, a senior member of the MotoAmerica staff told Roadracingworld.com Friday at New Jersey Motorsports Park.

According to the plan, which may officially be announced as soon as next week, there will only be one premier, big-bore class called Superbike and the current Superstock 1000 class will be remodeled into a new class intended to be a place for newer riders to gain experience on 1000cc machines.

MotoAmerica intends to make a stronger commitment to teams through its Premier Entry program (which provides guaranteed payouts to qualified teams that commit to the full season) and through a new program and purse for Privateer Superbike riders. MotoAmerica also hopes that motorcycle manufacturers will roll the contingency they currently post in Superstock 1000 into the new-look Superbike class.

MotoAmerica will not change its Superbike technical rules for the 2018 season regardless of what the FIM Superbike World Championship does with its rules for 2018, according to our source.

In 2018 there will only be one 600cc class in MotoAmerica, and it will be called Supersport. In hopes of making the class more affordable for teams, MotoAmerica will take away some of the modifications that are currently allowed in the Supersport class, particularly cylinder head modifications.

MotoAmerica has already announced that it will replace the current KTM RC Cup in 2018 with a Junior Cup, which will be open to all manufacturers with small-displacement sportbikes. The Junior Cup will closely resemble the current FIM Supersport 300 World Championship and it will be age-restricted. The Junior Cup will be open to riders as young as 14 but the upper age limit will be higher than the current maximum age limit for the KTM RC Cup, which is 22 years old.

Possibly the biggest news is that MotoAmerica will break new ground with the establishment of a new middleweight twins class for motorcycles with engines ranging from 650cc to 850cc. The class, which does not have an official name yet but may be called Pro Twins, will use varying minimum weight limits and Superbike tuning allowances to balance out motorcycles with different engine displacements. BMW, Ducati, Kawasaki, Suzuki, and Yamaha all have motorcycles that will suit this class, and KTM’s soon-to-be-released Duke 790 is a parallel twin.

With these changes, MotoAmerica is hoping to offer a more varied range of motorcycles on track and races that are easier for casual fans to follow, according to our source.