Bobby Fong is the 2026 MotoAmerica Quad Lock Superbike Champion. Sean Dylan Kelly arrived at New Jersey Motorsports Park holding a 26-point championship lead and left without the title, his Race 3 bid ending on the wet tarmac after a crash while pushing to close on the leaders.
Rain defined the weekend before a lap was ever turned in anger. Persistent wet conditions forced MotoAmerica to cancel qualifying entirely, setting grids for all three races on Free Practice times. Kelly started Saturday from the fourth row, worked forward through both races, and finished fourth each time. In Race 2 he led before a front tire that wouldn’t last the distance dropped him back. Sunday’s weather-delayed Race 3 was the title decider, and Kelly gave it everything. He slid off while pushing to catch the front group, recording a DNF that handed Fong the championship.
Teammate Jayson Uribe salvaged what he could from the chaos, finishing fifth twice on Saturday and fighting for a podium before crashing out of Race 2. His season closer was a mirror of the weekend: committed, quick enough to set the fastest lap in Race 2, and ultimately undone by conditions rather than pace.
The championship result is hard to absorb from the vantage point of where OrangeCat Racing sat three months ago. Kelly and the No. 40 BMW M 1000 RR had extended their points lead to 24 after Mid-Ohio, where Kelly won Race 1 outright. At VIR in August, Kelly and Uribe combined for three podiums while the lead held at 17 points. The season-long arc was a team building momentum race by race, only to watch a single wet Sunday compress all of it into a binary outcome.
Three wins and 13 podiums across the season represent a legitimate debut in the premier class for OrangeCat Racing, which entered Superbike competition in 2026 after winning the 2025 MotoAmerica Stock 1000 Championship on the same BMW M 1000 RR platform. The team is also the first official BMW Motorrad Motorsport entry in U.S. Superbike racing, a distinction that carries weight given the brand’s history in the series: in 1976, Butler and Smith BMW R 90 S riders Reg Pridmore, Steve McLaughlin, and Gary Fisher swept the top three positions in the inaugural AMA Superbike Championship standings. Fifty years later, OrangeCat came close to completing a full circle.
Uribe’s season arc ran parallel but quieter. He earned his first MotoAmerica Superbike podium at VIR with a third in Race 3, completed the year seventh in the standings, and closed out NJMP with two top-five finishes while supporting Kelly’s championship push. For a rider in his third season with the team making his first full Superbike campaign, seventh overall with a podium on the board is a workable foundation.
Team Principal Jeff Connors, in a post-race statement, called the Race 3 outcome heartbreaking but said he would never ask Kelly to ride any other way. Kelly, for his part, framed the season as a growth curve with the BMW platform and said he expects to keep improving toward 2027. The team has already committed to returning for the next championship with Kelly aboard, targeting the title they came within a rain-soaked race of claiming this year.
Mathew Scholtz finished third in the final standings with 284 points. OrangeCat and Kelly landed between Fong and Scholtz, which is a narrower margin at the top of the MotoAmerica Superbike field than the series had seen in recent years, and precisely the kind of pressure that makes a title defense uncomfortable.
Kelly carried a points lead that stretched as wide as 26 at various points of the season and never gave it away carelessly. He gave it away in the rain at NJMP trying to win. That is a different kind of loss, and probably the only kind OrangeCat Racing could live with heading into 2027.
Source: BMW. Images courtesy of BMW.
