Young Calgary motorcycle racer holds his own in U.S. training series

In five months, Phillip DeGama-Blanchet traveled all over the U.S. racing his motorcycle against 25 of the top riders in North America.

When the dust settled, DeGama-Blanchet finished ninth overall.

"So I peaked in round three which was at the Ridge (Motorsports Park in Washington State) in June so I got top six there," said Degama-Blanchet. "But since then I've kind of been hovering around top 10, I've had a couple of mechanical (failures), a couple of crashes, issues like that."

The 14-year-old was part of the 2022 MotoGP North America Talent Cup. It's made up of top club riders from 13 to 16 years old from across the U.S. with one from Mexico and two Canadians.

They're all outfitted with the same Aprilia RS250 bike to race that highlights the driver's talent.

"I kind of balanced with everyone else because everyone else was learning at kind of the same speed," said DeGama-Blanchet. "So at the beginning of the year, I think from first (place) to last, it was like seven seconds, by the end of the year it was three so everyone was getting quite quite a bit quicker."

DeGama-Blanchet is a top Canadian rider and used to winning events all over the country for his age group. Heading south of the border was an eye opener for him.

"I don't really have that much racing experience so they'll stuff you up the inside, they'll run you off track," said DeGama-Blanchet.

"They're very, very aggressive and very, very fast so it kind of taught me to iron out my weaknesses, because I thought I was pretty quick before I ended up in the U.S., but my egos kind of been leveled since then."

His dad Nic Blanchet says they set a goal to finish in the top 10 and they achieved that. He says Phillip could have finished in eighth place with just a few more points in the overall standings.

"He's quite humble in describing his achievements," said Blanchet. "Phillip did really well this year and basically the expectations from the organizers was he's going to be at the back of the (field), he didn't do that."

Blanchet says it was an amazing experience being part of the race circuit and the two put on 43,000 kilometres driving to all the races.

"So basically, we were all over the U.S.," he said. "We had two races in Georgia, one in Alabama, Pittsburgh and Pennsylvania, Texas, Colorado and Washington, it was a fantastic year, bloody hard work, it costs a lot of money, luckily, we had some great sponsors that made it possible."

While it was hard, the two say they would do it again and are ready to sign up for the 2023 season in November.

"If that works out and I win some (races) maybe we get picked up by a sponsor," said DeGama-Blanchet. "The idea is to either stay in America and move up to Junior Cup and Twins Cup (MotoAmerica).

"They're so much faster bikes or we can move up to Europe but that's obviously a lot more expensive but the competition and the training in Europe is a lot better so it really just depends what opportunities come up."

Learn more about the North America Talent Cup here.