In Praise Of Elias, Or It's Not Easy To Tame A Tiger

It is fashionable to cite the success of Toni Elias as proof of the dearth of talent in U.S. road racing. The mantra goes that Elias, a washed-up has-been, showed up on a MotoAmerica Superbike ride for Yoshimura Suzuki and casually beat the best of the U.S.

Toni Elias, MotoAmerica preseason testing, Circuit of the Americas, 2017.

This assessment is based on a short-sighted view of history and a lack of understanding as to how the business of racing works. Fact is that beating Toni on any given day is a challenge for anyone, not just in the U.S. but anywhere in the world.

Elias' speed is indisputable. Not only is he one of the few racers to beat a top-of-his-form Valentino Rossi, but he did so on a satellite machine. And Elias adapted to the new Moto2 series quickly, winning the first championship in that category. Speed is not the question.

Elias' reputation took a serious hit the following year when he went to MotoGP. Faced with the entirely different Bridgestone MotoGP tire after a season on the Moto2 spec Dunlop, Elias struggled to make the tires work. On his best days, he was mid-pack. On his worst, he was like Dani Pedrosa trying to get heat into the current spec Michelins - the tires simply gave him no grip, no feedback, and he struggled to get into the top 10. 

Switching back to Moto2 didn't help, and the underdeveloped Honda production MotoGP racer wasn't any friendlier. In racing, all you have are the results from last season, and Elias' results were literally nothing you wanted on your resume, especially given the heights he had ascended to. The top-level machinery that gets you wins simply wasn't made available to him.

In addition, Elias is a professional, with more than a decade of GP experience. In the post-economic-meltdown world, there were a lot of teams who could overlook Elias' speed, experience and talent and opt for a racer who would bring cash and sponsorship, rather than demand a paycheck. After earning a living doing something, it's hard to do it for free. It's a harsh-but-true estimate that on most grids, a third of the riders are getting paid, a third are doing it for free, and a third are paying for the privilege of racing. With no offers of paid rides, Elias sat, in his words, watching racing from the couch.

Many mistook this as European teams dismissing Elias' skills. Not true. They were dismissing his demands to be paid as a professional, compared to the extra value he could bring. Could Elias have scored mid-field or top 10 results in Moto2? Certainly. But why pay a rider for a 10th-place finish if you can have a rider bring the team money and finish 15th?

When Yoshimura Suzuki called, Elias was motivated. Yoshimura was a paying gig. Elias rewarded them with wins right off the bat on one of the oldest machines on the MotoAmerica grid - although, it must be said, a very well-sorted motor racing bike!

And that led to the 2017 season, with a very motivated Elias riding a brand-new GSX-R1000 that Suzuki had tested extensively in the off-season. Elias and teammate Roger Hayden both were more competitive than they had been, and Elias in particular gelled with the machine. Elias pushed hard; note the scuffed left hip of the leathers in the picture above. Elias dug deep into his well of experience and skill to earn the results he did.

The fact that Elias is the 2017 MotoAmerica Superbike champion isn't a damning indictment of the talent in the U.S. Rather, it could be viewed as the opposite. It took a rider who could win at the MotoGP level to defeat the U.S. riders, and even Elias had to push as hard as he could to make it happen.