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Two Weeks, Two Tracks, Countless Lessons: CotA & Barber Kick Off the 2025 Season

Carson King launches his 2025 season with the Talent Cup support race at MotoGP CotA and MotoAmerica Round 1 at Barber Motorsports Park. Read the behind-the-scenes story of highs, lows, and hard-earned lessons.

The 2025 season came in fast and heavy—two major race weekends back-to-back, kicking off with the MotoGP support race at Circuit of the Americas (CotA), followed by Round 1 of MotoAmerica at Barber Motorsports Park.

Let’s just say we were thrown into the deep end… and we swam.

CotA: In the Shadow of MotoGP

You can look at Friday’s weather one of two ways.

On the plus side, rain gave us a chance to ease into the massive CotA circuit at lower speeds. On the downside, it meant a slick track with limited grip and no real chance to push the limits. Either way, it was surreal to be out there in front of the MotoGP, Moto2, and Moto3 teams. Big names. Big energy.

Practice & Qualifying

Friday morning practice was tense. New bikes, new gear, new championship, and a whole lot of unknowns. What would the gearing need to be? What suspension setup would work? Who was going to be fast?

Despite the nerves, I ended up 6th in Practice 1. The gaps were big between riders, so I knew I’d need to find another gear before Qualifying.

Qualifying 1 was dry, finally letting us push. I landed in 5th, less than a second off DiMario—the guy everyone’s been chasing. By the end of Qualifying 2 on Saturday, I was still holding 6th on the grid for Race 1. We didn’t make many changes—gearing was pretty close from the start, and our Cresson-tested soft suspension felt great.

That’s a BIG hill…

Race 1: Trouble in the Tank

We tried tweaking the gearing for more top-end speed, but something felt off. Every time I got on the gas, the bike bogged. No drive. Watching other riders blow past me on the back straight was frustrating. I ended up finishing 11th, and we knew something was seriously wrong.

Saturday night, my dad and Rueben tore into the bike. It wasn’t until Sunday morning that they found the culprit—clogged fuel pump and filter, full of black debris. The Kramer crew stopped by, took one look, and said, “Yeah… that’s not supposed to look like that.” They hooked us up with a new filter and pump, and confidence was back on the rise.

We didn’t have a warmup to test Race 2 setup, so we reverted to the qualifying gearing. It was a safe call, and I knew I could be fast on it.

My cousin came out to be my umbrella man

Race 2: Redemption and a Battle Royale

Race 2 was a whole different story. I got off the line strong and slotted into 3rd behind DiMario and Bodie. Game on.

Then came Turn 3. I ran wide, lost time, and rejoined in 5th. It was a quiet few laps—until Derek Sanchez showed up and we started duking it out. We were so focused on each other that it allowed Kody Kopp, Ella Dreher, and Rossi Garcia to catch us.

Final lap, I went full defense mode—held the inside, braked deep, but lost grip on exit. The rear slid, and Ella, Derek, and Kody all came by before the line. I finished 8th.

Frustrating? Sure. But it was a heck of a race and we learned a ton.

Barber: New Round, Fresh Start

No rest for the weary. One week later, we rolled into Barber Motorsports Park for MotoAmerica Round 1.

We had a strong start—good gearing out of the gate, and I finished Practice 1 in 4th. By Q1, I shaved nearly a full second off my time and finished 5th. In Q2, we tried a different gear setup and I dropped another 0.4s, finishing 3rd in the session. On combined times, I lined up 5th—middle of row two with a clean shot into Turn 1.

We were starting to lean heavily into data at Barber. Everything we learned at CotA helped us make smarter decisions here. They weren’t easier, but they had more logic behind them.

Race 1: Close Combat

Race 1 was likely going to be our only dry race of the weekend. We adjusted the gearing for more punch out of the corners—and it worked. I dropped another 0.4s during the race.

I ran in 4th for most of it, locked in battle with Ella Dreher and Julian Correa. I was faster into corners, they pulled out harder. Classic match-up. On the last corner, Ella snuck past me and I crossed the line in 5th—just 0.315s behind her.

It was a good fight, and I was fired up for Sunday.

Race 2: Slippery When Soaring

Rain rolled in just as expected. Everything was delayed and reshuffled—we didn’t even know if we’d race until around noon.

During our quick acclimation session, I felt great. Right up until Turn 6… when I highsided to the moon. Miraculously, I was okay—and so was the Kramer. Tough bike.

The windscreen was toast, though. No time to fix it, so I went out for Race 2 with it broken.

I got a clean launch and was battling with Sam, Derek, and Ella the whole time. But the missing windscreen hurt more than expected—every time I popped out of the draft, the wind would hit like a wall. I couldn’t make the passes stick.

Still, I brought it home in 7th. Salvage mode complete.


What’s Next: Road America

Two race weekends back-to-back. Rain, battles, breakdowns, comebacks—welcome to racing.

These first rounds tested all of us. We’ve still got a long way to go, but the growth from CotA to Barber was massive. I’m proud of the team, grateful to our sponsors, and more motivated than ever.

Next stop: Road America at the end of May. Let’s keep climbing.

Want to keep up with the journey?

Make sure to follow us on Instagram and check out Pressure to Rise on YouTube for behind-the-scenes coverage of the Talent Cup. Huge thanks to our sponsors—you’re the reason we’re able to chase this dream. See you in Wisconsin!

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Barber (epilogue)

We know how to keep thing spicy!

To say things didn’t go to plan on Sunday would be an understatement of epic proportions.

The morning warm-up was the only thing executed according to plan. Carson tried an update to the set-up in this session, but it didn’t deliver, so it was backed out for the race.

the calm before the storm, getting ready for the morning warm-up

At about the 10-minute warning, Travis went to warm up the bike, but it didn’t kick over after a few seconds on the starter. Concerned, Travis started looking for a pulse in the fuel pump but didn’t hear it kick on when they turned on the bike. We started furiously pulling panels off, checking wiring connections but nothing was causing it to work. It had just decided that it wasn’t feeling it today. Continuing to check connections was just getting us deeper into the bike and time was quickly ticking down. With about zero seconds remaining, Travis found something that worked, touched the starter and the bike was running!

At this time, the grid had already gone out for their sighting lap and was about to leave for the warm-up. We were hoping we could get him down there to participate in the warm-up, but we would be happy if they’d let him start from the pit lane. Carson motored down there and was able to wait at the end of the pit lane but wasn’t allowed to take his place on the grid. An excellent performance so far this weekend was about to go unrewarded.

Because of the mad dash to get him on the track, we could not see the start, but we knew he went into turn 1 in dead last. Carson was fired up, though. By the end of lap 1, he had gone from 22nd to 17th, lap 2 had him up to 12th, and by lap 3, he was in sight of the top ten, a few seconds behind Ryan Barbour but catching him rapidly. Isaac Woodworth crashed out of the lead in turn 5 on lap 3, promoting Carson to 11th. Trenton Keesee did us a solid and slid out unharmed on lap 4, promoting Carson to 10th.

Bikes on track at the penultimate turn

At this stage of the race, Ryan was about 6 seconds behind Ella Dreher and the front group of 9 riders and losing time, so for Carson to move up beyond 10th was going to require a miracle. Carson was still charging hard, smashing in consistently low 1:39 lap times as he reeled in Ryan Barbour. On lap 6 of 11, Carson blitzed past Ryan and headed off into the sunset to try to catch Jayden Fernandez, who was 6 seconds up the road running a lonely 8th after Ella Dreher had passed him and left him for dead.

On lap 7, something clicked for Ryan, and he started getting racy with Carson, dropping over a second per lap to try and stick with him. Ryan went up the inside of Carson a few times going into turn 5, but each time Carson would just watch him come by and then drive out of the corner in front, retaining the position. Outside of those few challenges in turn 5, Ryan didn’t mount a serious challenge to the position, averaging 1-2 tenths of a second slower each lap.

Carson took a challenging situation from race 2 and turned it into about the best outcome we could have hoped for, but it was truly a bummer, given his pace all weekend. We still believe he would have stuck with the lead pack for the whole race without those gremlins.

This is the second time we’ve encountered this fuel pump issue in two events, and we need to contact TNT because, apparently, we also know drama.

Here’s a link to the highlights from the event

more sculptures from around the track

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