While MotoGP’s gilded heroes battled the stopwatches at Sepang on high-tech 2026 prototypes, breathless news from the FIM from the opposite side of the coin.
The announcement of a fourth team signed up for the latest MotoGP support class… the Harley-Davidson Bagger World Cup.
I can’t type those words with a straight face. I suppose that’s really the point. Bagger racing is largely… no, entirely about amusement.
This is not to undermine the talent and efforts of the riders and teams. Then again, they’re only doing it for their own amusement.
How about the spectators? For most of them, I believe, grand prix racing is a deadly serious affair of technical and personal subtlety. It engenders fierce tribal loyalties and desperate dedication, like top-level football. For them, support races have always had the same value as an after-school playground kickaround. Just a distraction from the main event.
Will this be the same for the Harleys?
Dorna’s first support class was Thunderbikes in the 1990s… organiser-supplied BMW twins, with occasional active GP riders (including once Kevin Schwantz) battling in the gang of support riders. Quite fun, but it lit no fires and ran out of steam.
More recently the support role went to MotoE, which came to a premature end last season. This secured electric-racing rights for Dorna, rather than another promoter, should it prove popular. But it really didn’t, and few will even notice its absence in 2026.
The Harleys, however, are different. Harleys always are. To some the apotheosis of what a real motorcycle should be, or to sportsbike riders the complete opposite.
They don’t leave people unmoved.
And racing them?
Well, AI informs me that in the US the King of the Baggers series is “a ‘must-see’ motorsport… that exploded in popularity since 2020”. It does have the advantage of rivalry between Harley-Davidsons and Indians, but that’s probably not the crucial element in its appeal.
It’s the sheer unlikelihood of flabby V-twins with (empty) hard luggage cases wobbling and roaring in super-close combat. (Sadly, the riders don’t wear fringed leathers. Outlaw-club colours. Or pudding-bowl helmets. Yet.)
None of MotoGP’s finesse and nuance. And – in context – none the worse for that.
Like monster trucks, bonkers drag racing or heavily padded American footballers, that context is very American. In the rest of the world, and especially MotoGP’s European heartland, it’s pure novelty. Not to be taken too seriously.
Well, MotoGP’s new owners, Liberty Media, are American, so this US intervention should be no surprise. Liberty has also proved very adept in marketing Formula 1, massively increasing the audience of what is by comparison to MotoGP (or Bagger racing) a dullish spectacle. Could the Baggers be a boon to MotoGP?
As a confirmed curmudgeon and old-school grand-prix purist, I have my doubts. I don’t expect everyone to agree, but the current take-up looks rather thin.
The latest addition of the Indonesian Niti Racing squad is only the fourth team, joining Saddlemen Race Development from the US, Italy’s Cecchini Racing Garage and Joe Rascal Racing from Australia. No riders yet named, and while Joe Rascal is to field three riders, the other teams will have two apiece. Making a grid of just nine so far.
With the first of six races due on 27 March at the Americas GP, it’s looking rather low-key.
Well, it can only get better. Or fall off the twig… unless Liberty can mount a rescue package, drawing on the existing talent pool in the US. Offering an unexpected return to GP paddocks for American riders.
And as for the value of clumsy but amusing novelty racing on lumpen touring bikes, in an arena where technical excellence and split-second differences are everything… well, we’re in the post-truth era, apparently.
So why shouldn’t we add in some post-truth racing…
