The 2026 Crash Report: Gravity Got Its Touches, The Riders Got The Titles

Nobody in the MotoAmerica paddock needs to be told that motorcycle racing is a balancing act. Lean a little too far, ask a little too much of the front tire, catch one patch of wet pavement at exactly the wrong moment, and the ground files its complaint. It happens to the best of them. Heck, in 2026 it happened to just about all of them.

Add it all up from the internal incident reports filed at the 10 rounds of the 2026 MotoAmerica Championship and the ground got its touches in: 433 total falls across practice, qualifying, morning warm-ups and races at America’s most demanding road courses. That’s up from the 398 crashes tallied across the 2025 season, and before anyone starts clutching their clip-ons in horror, the real story of the 2026 falls report isn’t how often riders went down. It’s who mostly didn’t, and how much of the increase had a lot less to do with bravery than it did with weather.

Staying Upright Still Wins Championships

There’s an old theory in this paddock that the surest way to win a championship is to simply not fall off. Jake Gagne proved it in 2023 when he won the Superbike title without crashing a single time. Josh Herrin nearly matched it in 2024, stepping off just once on his way to the crown. Last year, Cameron Beaubier went and bent the theory a bit, winning his sixth Superbike title despite six falls.

In 2026, the theory came roaring back — with interest.

Quad Lock Superbike Champion Bobby Fong fell just three times all season, and two of those came on the same April weekend at Michelin Raceway Road Atlanta: once in qualifying and once in race one. After that, Fong’s only other trip to the tarmac came at VIRginia International Raceway, where he was one of five riders caught up in a turn-one incident in race three. Three falls, one number-one plate. That’s not luck. That’s a championship ridden the smart way.

Fong wasn’t alone. Superbike Cup Champion Andrew Lee fell twice — both, oddly enough, in the same Laguna Seca race, a few minutes and a few corners apart. Supersport Champion Darryn Binder took a closer look at the racing surface three times in his debut MotoAmerica season. The South African now sets his sights on the Superbike class for 2027 alongside Cameron Beaubier at Warhorse Racing HSBK Ducati. 

16-year-old Twins Cup Champion Hank Vossberg became a junior archaeologist twice this season with a pair of slides into the gravel. Talent Cup Champion Nathan Gouker fell three times. And Royal Enfield Build. Train. Race. Champion Jasmine Noelle didn’t fall at all. Not once, all season. Somewhere there’s a trophy shelf and an unscuffed set of leathers to prove it.

Of all the championships won, it seems no rider has fallen more than three times on their way to a class crown. Which still holds true through the final two classes… Sort of.

On paper, Mission King Of The Baggers Champion Hayden Gillim crashed 11 times in 2026 — more than any other champion and second-most of anyone in the paddock. But context matters here. Gillim was doing double duty all year, racing a Superbike alongside his Bagger, and eight of those 11 falls came on the Superbike. On the motorcycle that won him a championship, he fell just three times. The man wasn’t careless. He was just busy. 

And a special nod to Mission Super Hooligan National Championship title winner Bryce Kornbau, who didn’t record a single fall in Super Hooligan competition all season. Kornbau did record two falls in Supersport competition during his attempt at the DAYTONA 200 earlier this year.

Blame The Rain

If you want to know why 433 (2026) is a bigger number than 398 (2025), don’t look at the riders. Look at the sky.

Ridge Motorsports Park in Shelton, Washington tops the track list with 68 falls, and it isn’t close. But here’s the thing: 52 of those 68 falls happened in wet or damp conditions. The Ridge-weekend was, to put it politely, a soaker, and turns 11 and 13 claimed 23 total tumbles and collected motorcycles like they were charging admission.

Second on the list is New Jersey Motorsports Park with 54 falls at the season finale, 29 of them in the wet. It should be mentioned that both the Talent Cup and Twins Cup classes had their second races scrubbed from the weekend due to inclement weather. Sensing a theme? The two wettest weekends of the year produced the two longest incident reports.

At the other end of the list sits Road America, America’s National Park of Speed, with just 29 falls — the fewest of any round. Circuit Of The Americas was next-cleanest with 33, followed by WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca with 34 and Daytona International Speedway with 36. Barber Motorsports Park (51), Michelin Raceway Road Atlanta (43), Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course (43) and VIR (42) fill out the middle.

The full tally, round by round: The Ridge (68), NJMP (54), Barber (51), Road Atlanta (43), Mid-Ohio (43), VIR (42), Daytona (36), Laguna Seca (34), COTA (33) and Road America (29).

When And Where It Happens

Nearly half of all the falls — 208 of the 433 — happened in races, which makes a certain kind of sense. Nobody ever won a trophy for the fastest qualifying lap of their life, but riders will happily trade a little bit of safety margin for a podium. Another 119 falls came in qualifying, where the lap only counts if it’s fast, 74 came in practice and 25 in morning warm-ups, with the rest scattered across test and special sessions.

By class, Supersport was the busiest — 126 falls, which tracks with Supersport having some of the biggest, youngest and most closely packed grids in the paddock. Twins Cup was next with 82, followed by Quad Lock Superbike (75), Mission Super Hooligan (41), Superbike Cup (36), Talent Cup (34), Mission King Of The Baggers (29) and Royal Enfield Build. Train. Race. (10).

The Riders

And now, the part everyone hates to see. The list. Nobody on this roster should hang their head — every name here is on it because they were pushing, and pushing is the entire job description. But the reports are the reports, so, per class, the riders who fell the most in 2026:

Quad Lock Superbike — Benjamin Smith (8), Hayden Gillim (8), Ashton Yates (7), PJ Jacobsen (7), Sean Dylan Kelly (7)

Supersport — Joseph LiMandri Jr. (12), Dominic Doyle (8), Brenden Ketelsen (7)

Twins Cup — Andrew Weyh (6), Kevin Olmedo (6), Marques Williams II (6)

Mission Super Hooligan National Championship — Hunter Dunham (6), Jeremy Taubman (3)

Mission King Of The Baggers — Troy Herfoss (5), Kyle Wyman (5), Max Flinders (4)

Superbike Cup — Deion Campbell (7), Danilo Lewis (6), Joseph Giannotto (5)

Talent Cup — Ian Fraley (5), Bandit Landers (5), Reese Frankenfield (4), Jake Paige (4), Kensei Matsudaira (4)

Royal Enfield Build. Train. Race. — Marie Madura (4), Emily Dickson (3)

LiMandri’s 12 falls in Supersport were the most by any rider in any class, with Gillim’s 11 across his two classes second overall. If it’s any consolation to either of them — and it probably isn’t, because racers don’t work that way — they’re in fast company. Champions, race winners and podium finishers are all over this list, because the limit doesn’t announce itself. You find it, occasionally, by stepping over it.

The Part That Actually Matters

Here’s the number that should lead the conversation, even if it makes for a less spicy headline: the overwhelming majority of those 433 falls ended with the rider getting up, dusting off their leathers and walking back to the pits under their own power, most of them more annoyed than injured. Modern airbag suits, helmets, air fencing and the MotoAmerica safety crew are all key aspects of what makes it possible for these riders to push the limits. 

So that’s the 2026 crash report. The ground got its 433 touches. The champions, by and large, stayed off it. And the rest of the paddock has all winter to do what racers have always done with a year like this: forget every one of them, accept the lesson, and come back in March ready to find the limit all over again.

Just, you know, maybe check the forecast for Ridge Motorsports Park first.