Another child dies road racing motorcycles but this time the reaction feels different

Millán easily survived the initial crash, but he was hit at speed by a following rider. It was the kind of racing incident that can happen anywhere; even the best protective gear isn’t enough. A minute of silence at the next race is about all we have to offer, as a sport.

The thing is, Hugo Millán was only 14.

He’s not the only teenaged racer who’s been killed recently. But this time, his death wasn’t followed just by a moment of silence. This time there were a few more outraged voices.

This is possibly the stupidest take I’ve ever heard from someone whose role is supposed to be about safety.

‘Only bad luck’ except it keeps happening over and over again, and it keeps costing kids their lives. https://t.co/krAZGTQZIB

— Simon Patterson (@denkmit) July 27, 2021

Some people have proposed technical rules that could make racing safer but others, notably motorcycle journalists Mat Oxley and Simon Patterson, have asked ethical questions: Whether or not kids want to do it, is it right to let them race motorcycles that can go 130 miles per hour? Is there any reason why they need to start so young?

Spoiler alert: It isn’t right. And there’s no reason.

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A post shared by Hugo Millan - Oficial (@hugo_millan_oficial)

12 years old, 130 miles an hour

The Red Bull Rookies Cup for aspiring road racers aged 13 to 17 launched in 2007. The idea was that Red Bull would search the world for the most promising rookies and groom them for future Grand Prix stardom. The young guns raced at all the European rounds of the World Championship, in front of the team managers who would, presumably, hire them as they climbed up the racing ladder. To best illustrate their talents, everyone in the class rode identically prepared 125 cc KTM two-strokes. The machines were very similar to 125 GP bikes then raced by adults in the World Championship, capable of reaching top speeds of about 130 mph.

Red Bull must’ve thought it was a success because that fall the company recruited candidates for a U.S. version, the Red Bull AMA Rookies Cup. Races were held during AMA Superbike race weekends. The final cut to select that first crop of AMA Rookies was held at Barber Motorsports Park in late 2007. I attended as a journalist for Road Racer X. I honestly don’t remember how I covered the tryouts in the magazine, but I vividly remember how I felt about it. The kids, of course, were enthusiastic and fast. But they were kids; I couldn’t square their participation in a sport that had maimed, paralyzed, and killed some of my friends and peers. It was, I thought, far too dangerous an activity for young teenagers, with or without parental consent.

I didn’t blame the kids. I knew that at that age I would have done anything for such an opportunity. I blamed the parents. Many of the parents I spoke to were ex-, club, or wannabe racers themselves. All had magical-thinking delusions and justifications about why their kid could somehow race safely.

There was one invitee whom I could not interview: 14-year-old Connor LaFrance. He had come down early with his dad, to learn the Barber layout ahead of the official selection trial. He was killed in a freak track-day accident.

We are so sorry and saddened about @CEVMotorcycle rider Hugo Millán's passing.

We would like to send all our love and support to his family, friends and team.

Ride in peace, Hugo. pic.twitter.com/zzc8IDqztG

— MotoGP™🏁 (@MotoGP) July 25, 2021

Back then, "Backmarker" ran as a weekly column on RoadRacerX.com. Soon after I got home, I wrote an editorial titled "Throwing Them in the Deep End" which earned the dubious honor of being almost the only Backmarker column that was ever flat-out rejected. I suppose I didn’t blame the editors for avoiding a spat with a major sponsor and advertiser like Red Bull.

The U.S. edition of the Rookies Cup proved short-lived. It only ran one season before it fell victim to the Great Recession. But that was long enough for 14-year-old Toriano Wilson to be killed at VIRginia International Raceway.

A couple of American kids were ported over into the original Rookies Cup in Europe. But most American pit parents saw the United States Grand Prix Racing Union (USGPRU) as the best available stepping stone to the World Championship. The USGPRU had a 125GP class that was open to kids as young as 12. Its status got a boost in 2010 when it was chosen as a support race to MotoGP at Indy. But come race day, it got some less welcome attention. On the warm-up lap, 13-year-old Peter Lenz crashed. He was hit and killed by a following rider, aged 12.

The response to a child’s death at such a high-profile event largely depended on whether or not the opinion was coming from within the insular world of motorcycle racing, or without. The web site Bleacher Report ran an editorial under the headline, "When Will Parents Be Held Responsible?" The writer, Sal Sigala Jr., argued that "To even think he had full adult comprehension of what he was getting himself into is ridiculous, and it doesn’t matter how long he’d been riding or how many trophies he’d won."

But ESPN’s coverage focused on riders’ and officials’ opinions, quoting Nicky Hayden who said, "That's not like a bike too big for him, you know. I mean this is our sport, we chose to do it." In a masterpiece of sangfroid, USGPRU chief steward Stewart Aitken-Cade said, "You do what you can to stop it from happening as best you can. That's really all that you can do." He added, "Any time a racer is injured in this way and loses his life, it's tough, adult or child. It just makes it especially difficult when it's a young guy like Peter."

I stewed on comments like that for a while. Lenz was 13, listed in the program at four feet, 11 inches tall and 81 pounds. He wasn’t "a young guy." He was a child.

Eventually I posted my original "Deep End" column on my personal blog. A couple of commenters agreed with me, but I was attacked for it on social media. Motorcycle racers who were personal friends angrily asked me why I was hurting the sport and/or piling on to his parents’ grief.

I certainly didn’t influence anyone at Dorna, the FIM, CEV, or Red Bull. Since then, they’ve doubled down on efforts to turn World Championship racing into a youth cult.

We are deeply saddened to report that Hugo Millán succumbed to his injuries after a crash in the HETC race.

We send all our love and support to his family, team and loved ones.

We will miss you Hugo. pic.twitter.com/IuSlkdCzxJ

— FIM CEV Repsol (@CEVMotorcycle) July 25, 2021

The original Red Bull Rookies Cup is still a feature at most MotoGP races. The Rookies now race 250 cc four-strokes to prepare them for similar machines in Moto3. But Red Bull has some competition from the Spanish CEV series, which has has become the de-facto AAA league for the World Championships.

With the blessing of the Fédération Internationale de Motocyclisme (FIM), CEV runs two championships expressly for very young riders: The Moto3 Junior World Championship is open to riders who are 14. The Hawkers European Talent Cup (ETC) is a spec series for riders as young as 12, all on Honda NSF250R production race bikes that have top speeds around 130 mph.

The Asia Talent Cup, for riders as young as 12, also uses Honda NSF250R production race bikes. And now there’s a Northern Talent Cup, run by the German-based ADAC organization, for riders 12 to 17. That series uses spec KTM 250s with a performance envelope similar to the NSF250R. In the United States, the STG Junior Cup, which uses production-based race bikes such as modified Kawasaki Ninja 400s, is open to riders as young as 14. With so many young teenagers around the world racing bikes capable of 130 miles per hour, deaths are inevitable; so are life-changing injuries, but those don’t titillate the press enough to generate international news.

I feel a bit disgusted with myself and everyone else in this business when kids die while racing motorcycles

— Mat Oxley (@matoxley) July 25, 2021

This time, the response feels different

Within days of Hugo Millán ’s death, MotoGP writer Simon Patterson posted an editorial on The Race, highlighting the fact that in the last three years, four teenagers have been killed on the lower rungs of the ladder that leads to MotoGP. He called this rate of carnage, "Motorcycle Racing’s Biggest Concern."

Mat Oxley is, for my money, the best informed and most respected motorcycle journalist writing in English. He never raced a motorcycle until he could pay his own way, at 17. His late start didn’t prevent him from racing in Grands Prix and winning a TT. He recently posted a reasoned critique of the youth cult on the MotorSport website, asking "Should 12-year-old kids be allowed to race 130 mph grand prix bikes?.

"The debate doesn’t concern the kids’ worthiness or willingness to race 130 mph motorcycles elbow to elbow," Oxley wrote. "It concerns the legal and moral duty of care that adults have towards children."

Mat, to be fair, was one of the few journalists who doubted the ethics of the Red Bull Rookies Cup from its inception in 2007. Back then he wrote, "I can’t help but feel a nagging sense of moral unease about the whole thing — allowing a bunch of school children to tear-arse around a racetrack at 120 mph, flogging energy drink… Shouldn’t the youngest of these stars of the future be back home swapping ringtones, bullying teacher, doing some heavy petting, some studying, maybe even a bit of schoolboy motocross or minimoto?"

DEP Hugo Millán 🙏🏻😔 Mi más sincero pésame a su familia, amigos y equipo. pic.twitter.com/5Vw5ijSCgi

— Marc Márquez (@marcmarquez93) July 25, 2021

From what I’ve read in the aftermath of Millán’s death, even the young MotoGP stars who came up in the Red Bull and/or CEV programs admit that nothing would have been lost if they’d started a couple of years later. There is no reason for kids to race full-sized, Moto3-style machines (or 650 cc twins) before they’re 16.

As Oxley wrote back in 2007, younger kids can prepare for racing careers riding minimoto or schoolboy motocross. That’s even more true today, since parents desperate to give their kids the best head start can get an Ohvale and let their kids race on go-kart tracks. None of those activities are safe, but they’re a lot less dangerous than road racing, for the simple reason that kinetic energy increases with the square of velocity; doubling speed quadruples the energy dumped in a crash.

But as long as people think that putting a 12-year-old on an adult’s motorcycle is the only road to MotoGP, parents will line up to sign those Red Bull and ETC waivers. So it’s up to racing organizations — the FIM, Dorna, CEV, MotoAmerica, and all the rest of them — to protect children from themselves and their racing-besotted parents.

Hugo Millán’s death has prompted a more open debate about the morality of children racing adult motorcycles, but I doubt that we’ll see real change any time soon. The FIM could simply dictate age limits for racing under its sanction but it will not do so as long as key influencers like Franco Uncini, the FIM’s official safety officer in MotoGP, dismiss such deaths as "unavoidable accidents."

So the FIM won’t issue a directive. The CEV won’t raise the minimum age for the European Talent Cup unless ADAC raises it for the Northern Talent Cup; if one acts unilaterally, the other will immediately see an influx of teenagers carrying a satchel of daddy’s money.

That leaves Dorna as the only stakeholder with the power to act unilaterally. For practical purposes, Dorna owns the MotoGP World Championship. It could reduce the pressure on very young kids by increasing the raising minimum age for racers in Moto3 World Championship from the current 16 years of age. It should be raised to 17 for the 2023 season and 18 for subsequent ones. The minimum age for the premiere MotoGP class should be 21.