MotoAmerica: Families That Race Together

By Sean Bice

Motorcycle road racing is quite often a family activity, and that is definitely the case in the MotoAmerica series. It starts from a very young age, too. Parents either invoke the love of motorcycles in their children, or their children become interested in motorcycles at a young age.

However it starts, parents helping their children race begins almost as soon as toddlers become adept at walking.

In MotoAmerica, boys and girls can begin racing in the Mini Cup Championship at just five years of age. The Mini Cup paddock is filled with youngsters who are supported, coached, and cheered on by their parents, and that family environment carries on into the MotoAmerica Talent Cup Championship and beyond.

Even in MotoAmerica’s premier class, Superbike, parents are vital parts of some rider’s teams. For example, Cameron Petersen’s father Robbie is also Cam’s crew chief on the Wrench Motorcycles team.

Gus Rodio’s father Kevin is not only Gus’s crew chief, but he also owns and operates the appropriately named Rodio Racing. Supersport rider Blake Davis’s father Mike is part of Blake’s Strack Racing crew. Kayla Yaakov’s father Dave is a constant fixture at the tire-balancing machine under the Rahal Ducati Moto canopy as he makes sure his daughter’s tires contain precisely the right amount of air and are balanced correctly. Twins Cup competitor Matthew Chapin’s father Phil is a key member of his M4 ECSTAR Suzuki crew, as is Kensei Matsudaira’s dad Kuni on Kensei’s Team Roberts crew.

Husbands and wives are ubiquitous throughout the MotoAmerica paddock, whether it’s riders like Mathew Scholtz and his wife Kiara; Kyle Ohnsorg and his wife Lindsey; or Josh Hayes and his wife Melissa (who is the team owner of One Cure/MP13 Racing, which Josh competes against in the MotoAmerica Supersport Championship). And there are several other husbands and wives betrothed to the MotoAmerica paddock almost as much as they are betrothed to one another. “For better or for worse,” as the saying goes.

Brothers are also part of the family affair that is MotoAmerica racing, including racers Bodie and Jake Paige, crew members Hunter and Nick Ciling, and others.

Speaking of Paiges, family triumvirates are a recurring theme within Team Hammer, a.k.a. M4 ECSTAR Suzuki, which is the largest race team currently competing in MotoAmerica. Ben Paige, who is Bodie’s and Jake’s father, also works within the team. And then, there is Twins Cup rider Sonya Lloyd, whose crew chief and right-hand man is her father David Lloyd. Together, David and his brother Michael made their name as Lloyd Brothers Racing and are well-known as riders, builders, and team owners in the flat track and road racing communities.

With all those families working together under M4 ECSTAR Suzuki’s multiple canopies, the theme extends to the sprawling enterprise’s owners. Former racer John Ulrich co-started and owns the team and ran it for 4+ decades, but its operations are now managed by his son and former MotoAmerica Superbike racer Chris (after years as second-in-command). And Chris’ 17-year-old son Van is an integral part of team operations, as well.

How about brothers and sisters? Yup, MotoAmerica has them, too, including Avery and Ella Dreher, who compete against each other in Supersport; Superbike Cup rider Danilo Lewis and his little sister Gabrielly, who races in Twins Cup; and King Of The Baggers rider Rocco Landers and his little sister Bandit, who races in Talent Cup.

The Fernandez Family In Focus

A brother-and-sister tandem who recently re-entered the MotoAmerica fold is the Fernandez siblings Jayden and his younger sister Juliana, who hail from Erie, Colorado. Both made their return at the Mid-Ohio round, with Jayden competing in Supersport and Juliana racing in Twins Cup. The pair previously raced as a brother-and-sister team in Mini Cup and also in Junior Cup (the predecessor to the current Talent Cup Championship).

At Mid-Ohio, with both racing for the ACES/WIN team, Jayden qualified 22nd, and improved to 18th in Race 1, but he suffered a DNF in Race 2. Little sister Juliana fared better in the two-banger class for the duo’s ACES/WIN team. She qualified 15th and finished 11th, just outside the top 10 in Race 1, and then she capped off her Mid-Ohio weekend with a 14th-place result in Race 2.

The Traveling Fernandez Family then took their show to VIRginia International Raceway where Jayden once again qualified 18th. He moved up one spot in Race 1 with a P17, and then he equaled that result in Race 2 with another P17.

Juliana matched her big brother’s qualifying effort with a starting position also in 18th in Twins Cup, but that was the good news. The bad news was that the 16-year-old rider crashed in Race 1 and sustained a fractured fibula and ligament damage, which prevented her from competing in Race 2.

It’s been a couple of weeks since Juliana suffered her injury, so we checked in with her to get a bead on how she’s feeling and when she hopes to return to racing.

“Things went really well at Mid-Ohio,” Juliana said. “We actually didn’t get our bikes until Thursday. Team Hammer built them for us, and Chris Ulrich brought them to us in their team transporter. I hadn’t ridden a Suzuki GSX-8R at all, so all of it was new for me, and the bike is quite different than the Aprilia RS 660 I’d been riding. But it was more a matter of me getting used to the bike and adapting my riding style to it rather than to adjust the bike to me. And I got comfortable on it really quickly.

“At VIR, I don’t think it was overconfidence, but let’s just say I got a little too excited in race one. I moved up to 11th from my P18 start. I was going a little too fast into turn one, and I forgot to backshift. I tucked the front on the brakes, and my right foot got caught underneath the bike. At first, I thought it was just a sprain, and I really wanted to be out there for race two. An X-ray showed that I fractured my fibula. I later had an MRI done, which revealed a partial tear of the ATFL (anterior talofibular) ligament and confirmed the fractured fibula.”

Juliana is rehabbing and making great progress. Her goal is to be able to race in the final round of the Twins Cup Championship on September 25 through 27 at New Jersey Motorsports Park. “I’m doing everything I possibly can to be able to race at New Jersey, and I’m confident I’ll be able to do it.”

Juliana and Jayden have been riding motorcycles and racing together for several years now. Jayden started when he was just three years old, and Juliana began when she was five. We wondered how the big brother feels about the little sister sharing the same passion for motorcycles.

“We’ve been riding motorcycles together for so long that it just feels natural,” said Jayden. “In the past, we’ve competed in the same class, but I’m now 19 years old, and Juliana will be 17 on September 19. So, I’m racing in Supersport, and she’s in Twins Cup. It’s great because I can keep track of her lap times, and she can do the same for me.”

Last year, Jayden spent the season competing overseas in the Aprilia Trofeo Pro Championship. It was a dream season in which the Team MMR rider finished on the podium at all seven rounds of the Italian National Championship.

For budgetary reasons, Juliana took some time off from racing to enable the family to afford to have Jayden live and race in Italy. It was an incredible gesture on her part, but she says it helped her, too. “It gave me some time to grow and mature, and I’m now a better racer because of the time off,” she said.

Since the Fernandez family lives in Colorado, close to the home base for Danny Walker’s American Supercamp, both Jayden and Juliana are instructors at the well-known riding school. The extra seat time has been a huge help to both of them. In addition, Jayden works as a Lot Tech for Aces Motorcycles in Frederick, Colorado, which is one of the team’s sponsors.

At Mid-Ohio, Jayden knew he was very much swimming in the deep end with his first foray in MotoAmerica’s highly competitive Supersport Championship. That, combined with the fact that he received his Suzuki GSX-R750 literally the day before the beginning of the Mid-Ohio race weekend put him on his back foot from the outset. But, he learned quickly and improved his riding at Mid-Ohio, then Virginia, and he’s also been able to test the bike at Highpoint Raceway, which is located not far from where the Fernandez family lives.

Jayden expects to be much better acclimated to his Suzuki for the upcoming round at Circuit of The Americas, and also, he has raced at COTA before, so he has some familiarity with the track. “My results should improve quite a bit in Texas, and I also hope to finish the season strong at the final round in New Jersey.”

Look anywhere in the MotoAmerica paddock, and it’s a family affair, for sure. And when families race together, they build memories that they can embrace together for a lifetime.