Wayne Rainey, John Kocinski, Eddie Lawson, and Kenny Roberts Jr.: what did they all have in common? Yes, they were all world championship-winning motorcyclists. Yes, they were all from the US. But something that ties these names together even more closely is that they were all directly influenced or mentored by King Kenny Roberts.
Now, the King is back to mentor the next generation of talent from the States in the 2025 Parts Unlimited Talent Cup, something my interview with Wayne Rainey has me eagerly anticipating.
Roberts will be the owner of one of the teams next year. He's partnering with Fastrack Racing's Arney Wick, and will initially start the team with just one rider. But it's not just any rider.
Kody Kopp is already a three-time American Flat Track (AFT) Singles Champion, during the Circuit of the Americas MotoGP event on March 28-30, he'll make his Talent Cup debut on the Krämer APX-350 MA. There's something poetic about Kopp's background in AFT because that is where so many of the top US riders from the 80s and 90s honed their skills—Roberts himself was a two-time A.M.A. Grand National Championship winner.
With so many youngsters coming up through mini-bike Championships, it's practically unheard of to see competitors at the highest level hopping from a purely focused flat-track background. If Kopp does well coming from AFT and continues to do well on GP-spec bikes, it'll be a borderline homage to the US two-wheeled Titans who preceded him.
