A 15-year-old motorcycle racer from Lorette will be riding a brand-new feeder series for MotoGP.

Jack Beaudry began racing motorcycles five years ago. He says he started with mini-bikes at Speedworld in Winnipeg and graduated to 250cc road bikes in Gimli this past summer. In fact, Jack says the Manitoba Roadracing Association or MRA changed the rules to allow him to participate.

"It used to be you had to be 16 to ride there and now you have to be 14 with confirmation from the club."

Jack’s father Louis Beaudry says he won the last race of the season making him the youngest person to ever win a race in the history of the MRA.

Louis Beaudry says in December of last year, the North America Talent Cup was announced and it immediately caught his attention.

"It is in conjunction with MotoGP and the North American series and so they have gotten together to try and get North American riders over to Europe where MotoGP is most popular. The majority of the international race series have primarily European riders and there aren't a whole lot of North Americans but this is intended on being a feeder series for these young up-and-comers to get that shot."

Louis says he wasn’t even sure if Jack would qualify to be a part of the series but he went for it anyway, noting "I decided to submit an application and see where it took us and low and behold, a few days later, I got an email after the registration had closed that Jack had been selected so here we are."

Jack Beaudry graduated to 250cc bikes this past summer. Photo credit: Louis Beaudry.The series uses Ohvale Aprilia RS250 SP bikes which Louis says will go well over 200 kilometres per hour on the straights. Races will take place at iconic circuits like Willow Springs, Road Atlanta, and the Circuit of the Americas.

Jack says he was blown away when he got the news.

"In early January, my dad called me upstairs and I honestly thought he was going to say I am going back to online school so I was pretty nervous about that but when he sat me down and said 'we were thinking of getting you involved in this.' I was speechless."

Louis says the first race of the series will take place at the Circuit of the Americas in Austin Texas on the weekend of April 8th to 10th.

“That is the same weekend that the MotoGP series is in town and so that is just such an incredible opportunity, just being on the same grid, on the same track as the world's best riders so it is an unbelievable experience to be able to ride there.”

Jack notes the first race is going to be wild.

"I actually went to a MotoGP race there a few years ago in 2018 and what I thought is 'someday, I am going to ride on this track and someday I am going to win a race on this track,' and now that I actually have the opportunity to do that, it feels pretty unreal."

Jack Beaudry is one of only two Canadian riders who will be racing in the North America Talent Cup.