Meet Kayla Yaakov, the Teen Motorcycle Racer Who Could Transform the Sport in America (2024)

There’s a new player set to deliver a fresh charge of excitement in stateside motorcycle racing this season, and her name is Kayla Yaakov. The teenage phenom from Gettysburg, Pa., is riding for Rahal Ducati Moto in the MotoAmerica series. The team, also new, is led by Graham Rahal and his father Bobby, who have been mainstays in IndyCar.

Last summer, after she turned 16 years old—the minimum age for competition in the Supersport class—Yaakov got a tryout with Tytlers Cycle Racing in two events. Rain made things interesting in the season finale at New Jersey Motorsports Park. Starting 13 in a field of 22, she overcame initial nervousness, guided her Kawasaki through the sliders and gliders, and finished third—only 1.9 seconds behind winner Tyler Scott. It made her the first female rider to record a podium finish in the class. (Supersport is one notch below the top Superbike category.)

Graham Rahal, a collector of more than 30 Ducati bikes and owner of two Ducati dealerships, had monitored Yaakov’s progress in the lower divisions of MotoAmerica, a league that launched in 2015. Her performance in New Jersey sealed the deal.

“I’ve been, for years, eyeing MotoAmerica, wanting to get out on the racetrack with Ducati,” Rahal tells Robb Report. Everything came together fast, he explained, and the team was announced last October. “We felt strongly that Kayla was the perfect fit to be in our fold,” says Rahal, who mentions that his father was “very influential” in Danica Patrick’s IndyCar career.

After the October announcement, four months passed until Yaakov climbed aboard a yellow Ducati Panigale V2 for testing at a Florida track. In stock trim, the 440-pound bike carries a 955 cc twin-cylinder engine that makes 155 hp and 77 ft lbs of torque.Of course, her race version gets some added attention to make it even more competitive. “The V2 was supposed to be a fairly stock bike, at least so I thought,” says Rahal. “It’s not. There’s a lot of development that goes into it.”

Interrupting her homework for a subsequent phone interview with us, Yaakov elaborated on her bike, saying, “It’s basically what you can buy off the showroom floor, intensified a little bit just to give us more power and the ability to race as fast as we do. I think it’s, for sure, the best Supersport bike on the grid. It’s so agile, very light, and really does suit my riding style very well.”

On March 9, Yaakov raced in the season-opening Daytona 200, a brutal 57-lap slugfest on the 3.5-mile circuit inside Daytona International Speedway. Starting 18 out of 62 on the grid, she finished in the 11 spot for the Supersport class, only 61 seconds behind winner Josh Herrin but ahead of her teammates PJ Jacobsen and Corey Alexander.

She reported feeling strong to the finish, although her legs cramped up for a few minutes afterward. Team principal Ben Spies has her on a strength-and-conditioning program that concentrates on “racing muscles.”Spies has a multi-championship pedigree from the AMA Superbike Series that MotoAmerica superseded.

According to Rahal, Spies rates the young rider as “the fastest person, period, in her age range around the world at this time.” He also notes that the European arm of Ducati has called her the best woman racer they have ever seen.

MotoAmerica chugged into 2024, its ninth season, without having redlined any attendance or viewing metrics, but a bright new star sure would help, much the way Caitlin Clark has pushed women’s basketball into a new zone. “I think Kayla Yaakov can change MotoAmerica,” says Rahal. “She can really help put the sport on the map and take it to a level we have not seen.”

At the end of our conversation with Yaakov, we offered a physics theory first proposed by Mario Andretti: “If everything seems under control, you’re not going fast enough.” In her own well-formulated style, Yaakov thought it through and said, “In control and out of control at the same time.” With that mindset, she should have a trajectory in the sport that will certainly be compelling to track.