Reverse Supermoto Migration: The French fly here to win..... Now it's OUR Turn!
Nor-Cal Fastkid, Flyin' Ryan Kearns to contest the French, and World Series!

 The soon to be teammates. #990 Ryan Kearns in front of #55 Fred Guerin

5.28.2011: Mountain View, CA.
It all pretty much started with one of the very first Fast Froggies, Alex Thibeault, coming over here to ride during the beginning of the AMA Supermoto Championship Series...(in the photo to the right on the left end along with the original French Connection, L to R Sylvain Bidart, David Baffeleuf, Micky Dymond, and Adrien Chareyre).  Alex rode for the CHM Exhaust Supermoto Team in 2004....(it's Alex's image that adorns the side of the CHM big rig to this day) and that led to Sylvain Bidart riding in the last two rounds of the 2007 series for the Roger Hensley Team......and THAT led to Sylvain winning the last AMA Supermoto Championship in 2009.

THAT French Connection, which at the same time saw riders like Adrien Chareyre, and Xavier Bellerophone, riding for Paul Lima and his GP Cycles Supermoto Team, led to an ongoing interaction between Sylvain and the man whom he rode for full time in France, the Luc1 Supermoto Team, owned and managed by Ludovic Lucquin. Along with Ludovic came French brake importer for the USA, Phillipe Danh. Philiipe helped arrange for Sylvain to be here in 2009 along with a one-off ride by another very fast froggie, Aurelien Grelier, who was the runner-up to Sylvain as the Champion of the French series....(and who took home a very respectable 6th place finish right behind Sylvain and Jeff Ward at the Las Vegas event in 2009).

Fast forward to April 2011..... SupermotoUSA introduces a four-round Pro Series with a $3500 purse per round and that catches the eye of Philippe Danh and Ludovic Lucquin..... Luc1 has a very fast kid in the form of Fred Guerin who in his first year ever riding Pro Supermoto wins the 2010 French S3/250 title. Ludovic had wanted to enter Fred into a couple of the West Coast Supercross rounds to start the 2011 Monster Energy AMA Supercross season off but a pre-season injury put that on the shelf so he enters the young....(18 year old) Guerin in the Stateline Supermoto Challenge and lines up a 250 ride with Roger Hensley of the CHM Team that has been connected to him and France for years. Fred kicks ass in the 250, winning after a very tight battle with Jacob Lehmann of Washington, and places 4th in the money race, the Unlimited Pro. Great exposure....... Great success..... Great fun in the USA again.

During the Stateline/Las Vegas event Fred becomes friends with a number of the competitors despite the language barrier and one of them is the fast #990 that he finishes behind in the Unlimited race, Ryan Kearns. Unbeknownst to Fred and Ludovic, Ryan has been wanting to go to Europe in a big big way and the friendship, and competition, between him and Fred is a match made in heaven.....(fateful match yes??).

Fast forward five weeks to May....... Fred Guerin and Ludovic Lucquin return to the USA for Round #2 of the SupermotoUSA Pro Series, this time in Northern California at Infineon Raceway. Fred and his Nor-Cal buddy, Ryan, battle it out in practice as Fred has a CRF450R this time around courtesy of Intents Racing's Russell Case and the stage is set for the friends to battle it out for the big bucks. A quirky mechanical glitch sidelines the 450 for Guerin and it's Ryan that takes home the $1000 paycheck as he heads 2009 AMA Supermoto Lites Champion and fellow Nor-Cal SupermotoUSA racer, Danny Casey for the top spot on the podium.

The match made in heaven and fate collide and Ryan's desire to race Supermoto overseas is going to come to fruition as he has now secured a spot on Ludovic's Luc1 Supermoto Racing Team for the full 2011 French National Championship season along with a couple select World Supermoto Championship Series events AND the 25th Mettet Superbikers event in Belgium!

Ryan getting the opportunity to ride at the current top level of Supermoto....(until that level is renewed here in the USA) overseas says as much about his love for Supermoto as his immense talent. Despite the rebuilding state of Supermoto in the USA, Ryan has kept his focus on the pavement/dirt racing that he likes the best despite many many other talented young Supermoto racers turning to roadracing and dirtrack to further their career. Big huge kudo's have to go out to Ryan and his numerous supporters....(parents Tami and Patrick... sponsor Nathan Garcia/RezPony Racing) for keeping him in the Supermoto game as it is riders like him that are the future of Pro Supermoto racing here in the USA even if he has to head overseas to race against the best right now.

Ryan is planning on being in France in early June to prepare for the first round of the French Championship that will take place on the June 11-12 weekend.

Like Kenny Roberts in Roadracing back in the 80's and Mark Burkhart in Supermoto in 2009, Ryan will be taking his major skills overseas as the only American competing in his pro discipline. The culture..... the food..... the language....... it will all be new and an incredible experience for the youngster from Stockton, California but SMO and the rest of the Supermoto world here in Nor-Cal that have watched him grow up and mature think he'll do just fine....(and maybe even MORE than "just fine").

Stay tuned to SMO for updates on Ryans travels and results. He and Fred Guerin will both be back here in the USA to contest the last two rounds of the SupermotoUSA Pro Series iin August and October.

A great big congratulations to Ryan. We here in the USA will look forward to reaping the Supermoto benefits that will come with the reverse Supermoto migration this year and into the future!!