The best of the best

The Red Bull MotoGP Rookies Cup Team arrived in Indianapolis ready to do battle with the Red Bull AMA U.S. Team for the Riders Cup on September 14. With ten riders in each team the two squads represent the best of the world's teenage racers and will be out to show which of the parallel Rookies Cups contains the best of the best.

Men on form are 16-year-old Norwegian Sturla Fagerhaug, third in the Cup and the winner of the final race, plus South African Mathew Scholtz who won the Saturday race in Brno and turned 16 the day the team landed in the US. Equally likely to do well is 17-year-old Briton Matthew Hoyle, who took a third and a second at Brno plus the lap record for the second year running.

Mixing it with the best

Having raced in Europe for two seasons now and having at least seen the Indianapolis track Beach has a good idea of just how the circuit might best match the experience of the two teams. "It is a Grand Prix style track that was first built for Formula One and that is what we are used to racing on in Europe even if now it is being run backwards and a bit modified. I don't think it has any real surprises for our team and I think we'll have the usual guys running up front, Salom, Hoyle, Sturla and I think we'll be mixing it with the best of them, Hayden (Gillim) and Benny (Solis)."

Go-Karting as race prep

It was Salom who summed up the feeling for the team as they enjoyed a day Go-Karting as the best way to shake off the jet-lag and get acclimatised. "Of course we all want to win the race ourselves but more than that we understand it is about the team and taking home the trophy. We are going to work together and I know from the hard races we have had this year we have great riders in our team. We know that coming here and racing against those guys at home will not be easy, we don't know much about them but by the time we get to Sunday we will. I think we can do it."

Crowning glory

The Riders Cup race will be run before the 125cc, 250cc and MotoGP races at the Red Bull Indianapolis Grand Prix. The race is scored according to normal World Championship points and the team scoring the most points will then hold the newly cast Riders Cup until the rematch at Valencia on October 25th.