In the last 10 years since its founding, Irvine-based motorcycling promoter and organizer MotoAmerica has witnessed rider entries double and on-site attendance triple for its annual road races.
The very first race in 2015 had 64 entries across the original five racing classes. Now with seven class groups, entries range from about 175 to 200 total.
After introducing its own livestreaming service in 2019, digital viewership has also tripled.
MotoAmerica’s four founders attribute this growth to their strategy of making road racing more accessible for racers and fans.
Chuck Aksland, Terry Karges, Richard Varner and Wayne Rainey formed Krave Group LLC in 2014 and acquired the promotional and management rights for the American Motorcyclist Association’s (AMA) road racing properties in North America which became MotoAmerica.
“We had wheels on the track in five to six months,” Chief Financial Officer Varner told the Business Journal of starting out with no team and no television contract.
“The goals were to get it up and running and then get it on TV somehow.”
The racing executives are aiming to restore the segment of road racing both in competition and as an industry.
“We’re the ones leaning over, not jumping,” Varner added.
With the introduction of its platform, MotoAmerica Live+, the company’s overall viewership was able to expand driven by the streaming service and its YouTube channel. The latter outlet recorded total annual views of 177.5 million in 2023.
Sales at races perked up dramatically across the spectrum after COVID-19 showing a renewed interest, according to Varner.
The group has also expanded the race classes, beyond superbike and supersport, of its motorcycling umbrella.
This includes developing a women-only class, dubbed Built. Train. Race., that competes in several rounds of racing across the country. MotoAmerica also added a little league-type class called the MiniCup that allows youth from the ages of 8 to 14-year-olds to train and participate in races.
Both were added in 2021. The women’s program counted 135 applicants this year. The MiniCup has a payout of close to $130,000.
MotoAmerica has also been adding 10 to 11 new events year to its racing lineup since 2018.
Rule Followers
Wayne Rainey, the current chief executive of MotoAmerica, is a three-time 500cc Grand Prix World Champion, two-time AMA Superbike Champion, and an AMA Hall of Famer.
“He was a constant competitor,” Varner said.
Karges had experience working with the Walt Disney Co. and later Seaworld, and “had a good sense of marketing,” Varner noted. Aksland would best serve in operations with experience running events, tracks and racing teams, he added.
Varner, after a couple decades of working in the oil business from Coastal Corp. to his own company, was looking for a new project when MotoAmerica came together.
To gain credibility for MotoAmerica, and fair footing for racers, the founders made sure to establish the right racing rules according to both U.S. and international standards. The timing on the track is very precise with every race fitting within one hour.
While TV production has played a big part in its event growth, the team made sure to develop a social media presence simultaneously. At the end of year one, MotoAmerica had 65,000 followers.
Now, it’s at 3.5 million in total across all its platforms. With more people engaged, the company plans to start monetizing its content even more.
As for settling down in Irvine, Varner said there was a greater concentration of motorcycling operations in Southern California and much of the motorcycle media were down here as well.
“Most of the people who knew anything about motor racing were down in SoCal,” he said.
“It couldn’t have happened anywhere else.”
For the first several years, MotoAmerica has been focused on explaining the “who” and “what” of professional road racing, which meant broadcasting its events wherever it could.
MotoAmerica is now moving on to better shaping the events and the racing classes to keep the pipeline full.
“Now it’s the where and when,” Varner said.
