With the Spanish motorcycle company GasGas being acquired in late 2019 by the mighty KTM AG (Pierer Mobility group) to go along with their 2013 acquisition of Husqvarna, the company is looking to bring the same brand recognition that KTM and Husqvarna now share to the name GasGas. GasGas started their push into professional motocross racing by taking over the Standing Construct team in Europe and signing MXGP World Championship riders Glenn Coldenhoff and Ivo Monticelli, as well as Simon Langenfelder and Jeremy Sydow to contest the MX2 World Championships under the newly formed Standing Construct GASGAS Factory Racing team for 2020 and beyond. With the proven KTM platform as their starting point, the bikes got the same jumpstart Husqvarna did and Glenn Coldenhoff already put the GasGas brand into the MXGP record books as an MXGP overall winner at round 4 of the series in Latvia. With the MXGP World Championship side of racing now covered for GasGas, the rumors have been flying about where the GasGas brand would be landing inside the American AMA Motocross and AMA Supercross series’.
Today, Troy Lee Designs confirmed the biggest rumor going around on that front by announcing on social media that they would be the new GasGas team’s title sponsor. “Here to confirm the rumor is true,” a Troy Lee Designs representative said. “TLD / KTM to GasGas is official for 2021 as the 450 / 250 factory effort.” We are hearing that GasGas will take over the Troy Lee Designs / KTM 250 team with Tyler Keefe continuing in his Team Manager role and they would also add two 450 riders to the team as well. The strongest rumor attached to the GasGas 450 effort in the US has Justin Barcio changing out of Alpinestars gear, throwing on a Troy Lee Designs kit, and leaving the Monster Energy / Yamaha for the GasGas brand in ’21. We have heard that BamBam being signed is a done deal, but 2020 has been one long strange trip so we are saying nothing definitive until we get a press release.
From Instagram yesterday, Justin Barcia said, “Obviously I would like to address all the chatter on the internet today! Some things that have been said are completely not true. I have been working very closely with Yamaha and Star racing and I have absolutely nothing but good things to say about them.” We’re not sure exactly what Justin meant, but I think he is just trying to say that there are no hard feelings and, despite leaving, he and the team are working well together and will continue that productive relationship through these last three races for ’20.
You can check out Justin’s Instagram post and Troy Lee Designs Instagram posts below. This is going to be an interesting offseason, no doubt.
