Much like the opening round (and debut) of the Parts Unlimited Talent Cup By Motul that was held as a standalone MotoAmerica event alongside the MotoGP Red Bull Grand Prix of The Americas, the Talent Cup will be the only MotoAmerica class in action at Vintage Motorcycle Days (VMD).

The weekend action for the Parts Unlimited Talent Cup will include a practice session and a provisional qualifying session on Friday, a final qualifying session on Saturday morning, and then, race one is at Noon on Saturday and race two is on Sunday, also at Noon (all times Eastern).

With three rounds and six races under its belt, the Talent Cup has proven to be exactly what was hoped as it has shown the wide variety of talent in the class with a lot of that talent fighting it out at the front of the pack.

Four different racers have won the six races thus far – Alessandro Di Mario, Sam Drane, Bodie Paige, and Hank Vossberg – and those four scattered across the country to race motorcycles in different disciplines/classes during the break in the Talent Cup series that started after the May 30 round at Road America.

The championship leader going into VMD at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course is Warhorse Ducati/American Racing’s Alessandro Di Mario, and the 16-year-old from Lexington, Kentucky, has been busy beating up on his rivals in the MotoAmerica SC-Project Twins Cup series on his Robem Engineering Aprilia RS 660. Di Mario has won five races in a row after finishing second in the first three races of the season. Di Mario is far and away the championship leader with a gap of 67 points over second place.

Di Mario comes into Mid-Ohio riding a wave of confidence that will make him difficult to beat. He also arrives with a 21-point lead after winning three of the first six races in the Talent Cup series. He has yet to finish off the podium.

Di Mario is being chased in the championship by a pair of Australians who spent the break between Parts Unlimited Talent Cup By Motul races doing battle in flat track races, including the AMA Flat Track Grand Championship. Those two riders are Yamaha BLU CRU Estenson Racing’s Sam Drane and Bodie Paige Racing/Mission Foods/D&D Certified’s Bodie Paige, the latter of which earned the prestigious Nicky Hayden AMA Flat Track Horizon Award for top performer at the event.

The two Aussies are both just 15 years old and were born four days apart.

Drane is 21 points behind Di Mario and 20 points ahead of third-placed Paige. As mentioned earlier, both have won Parts Unlimited Talent Cup By Motul races in 2025.

Jones Honda’s Julian Correa is fourth in the championship and just a point behind Paige. Correa, however, won’t be racing at Mid-Ohio as a prior commitment will see him racing in England the same weekend.

Fifth-ranked Hank Vossberg has also been a busy young man during the hiatus in Talent Cup rounds as he’s been racing as Di Mario’s teammate on the Robem Engineering Twins Cup team. And he’s doing quite well, thank you very much, jumping all the way up to fifth in the standings after not even competing in the first four races. Since his class debut at Ridge Motorsports Park in round three, Vossberg has finished fourth, second, third and second. Impressive.

Vossberg will be back in action on his Tytlers Cycle Racing-backed Krämer APX-350 MA at Mid-Ohio, 22 points behind Correa and two points ahead of MP13 Racing’s Ella Dreher. Dreher has scored points in every round with her two fourth-place finishes highlighting her season thus far.

Royalty Racing’s Carson King is seventh in the title chase, just three points ahead of Rossi Motorsports Powered By 3:16’s Rossi Garcia.

Team Roberts’ Kody Kopp sits ninth in his first season of road racing of any kind. The high point of Kopp’s season so far was his sixth in race two at Road America, highlighted by the fact that he raced in the lead group and was less than a second behind race-winner Di Mario.

Bettencourt Racing’s Nathan Bettencourt rounds out the top 10 heading to Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course.

Pre-Mid-Ohio Notes… 

MotoAmerica will return to Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course, August 15-17, for a full round of MotoAmerica Championship action, headlined by two Superbike races that will feature the likes of Josh Herrin, Cameron Beaubier, Bobby Fong, Jake Gagne and the rest of the premier class in MotoAmerica.

In addition to the Superbike class, the August 15-17 weekend will also feature Mission King Of The Baggers, Motovation Supersport, Stock 1000, and the Mission Super Hooligan National Championship. For ticket information, visit https://midohio.com/tickets/motoamerica

This year marks the first year of the Parts Unlimited Talent Cup By Motul as it replaces the Junior Cup Championship that was introduced in 2018 to take over from the KTM RC 390 Cup. The past champions of the class for up-and-coming young racers are as follows: Gage McAllister (2015), Brandon Paasch (2016), Benjamin Smith (2017), Alex Dumas (2018), Rocco Landers (2019/2020), Tyler Scott (2021), Cody Wyman (2022), Avery Dreher (2023), and Matthew Chapin (2024).