KTM/HMC Racing's Taylor Knapp (Photo: Evan Williams)

Fillmore has shown he will ride the bike to 100%. He’s hungry, so why not get a similar rider to pair him with? Knapp is the one. Taylor has flown under the radar a bit but had the economy not been so bad the past few seasons, someone would have hired him before now. He’s had seat time on Suzuki Superbikes, he’s been on an EBR, and he’s ridden some in England. Riding the big bike is something he’s used to doing. If you spend much time in pit lane, you’ll notice that Knapp is a very serious worker. That will blend well with Uli Toporsch and the rest of Mitch Hansen’s crew.

Mitch has known all year they were probably going to add a second rider. He’s been Mr. Popular to all the riders without contracts. “Hey Mitch, how’s it going? Bike looks great! What about the Packers this year?” If he ended up with Knapp, it’s because he wanted him. And it was a rumor for the second half of the season that Knapp was who they wanted.

A common mistake in the AMA Pro paddock is to hire the right guy at the wrong time. There are riders with more name recognition than Taylor Knapp but this signing makes a lot of sense -- a talent with potential to improve on a bike that has the potential to improve along with him. It beats the heck out of signing someone who might have fit in ten years ago, or one of the party animals, or the helmet-slammers, or one of the guys who rides really hard about twice a year.

When new manufacturers entered AMA Pro Superbike in the past, the pace of the arms race has conquered a number of them, notably Harley-Davidson in their ill-fated program. They started out behind, and couldn’t close as the others continued to get better and better. The VR1000 improved but never enough. One could argue that Harley was closer to the front when they started than they were when they quit.

The financial state of things now means the Yamahas and Suzukis at the front haven’t changed much in the past few years and don’t look to do so in the near future, either. The technical rules keep things much more sane, too.

So KTM has a bike that already has shown it is not too far off. They have two young riders who are going to push it along with a solid team. KTM’s test rider came to the States and saw first-hand how the RC8 R performed. Let’s see if they can keep going forward.