Ben Spies ( /ˈbɛn ˈspiːz/; born July 11, 1984 in Memphis, Tennessee), also known as "Elbowz" due to his riding style where his elbows protrude outward, is a professional motorcycle road racer who turned pro in 2000. He won the AMA Superbike Championship for Yoshimura Suzuki in 2006, and successfully defended it in 2007 and 2008.

For 2009 he raced in the Superbike World Championship series for the Yamaha Italia team; winning the championship in his rookie year by six points over rival Noriyuki Haga. He started racing on Yamaha YSR50cc bikes with the Central Motorcycle Roadracing Association in Texas when he was 8 years old. Spies currently lives in Italy.

Spies started riding motorcycles at the age of five and racing with CMRA at the age of eight in 1993. In 1994, he won a YSR championship followed by an 80cc championship the following season. At age 12, he started riding 125 Grand Prix bikes, traveling to WERA races outside of Texas. At age 14, Spies started riding 600s, winning more championships. He signed with Suzuki in 2000 at the age of 15, and began his AMA career.

Colin Edwards II (born February 27, 1974 in Houston, Texas) nicknamed the Texas Tornado is an American professional motorcycle racer. He is a two time World Superbike champion and has competed in MotoGP since 2003, now riding for the NGM Mobile Forward Racing team in the 2012 season.

At the age of three, his Australian father, Colin Edwards Sr. (an amateur motorcycle racer himself), introduced him to a minibike, and Edwards entered his first motocross race at the age of four. Over the next ten years, Edwards became one of the top-ranked junior motocross competitors in the USA, winning dozens of races in the 50cc to 80cc categories in local, regional and national events.

In 1988 at the age of 14, Edwards stopped competing in motocross races, having become distracted by the normal demands of being a teenager. However in 1990, Edwards and his father attended a motorcycle road race event in north Texas, and this inspired him to attempt road racing.

In 1991 Edwards began competing in amateur road-racing events locally, but rapidly progressed to national events. He was undefeated in every amateur event he entered that year, and won numerous national amateur titles. His performance was sufficiently impressive for him to be offered a sponsored ride with South West Motorsports, and Edwards turned professional just before the commencement of the 1992 season.

Nicholas "Nicky" Patrick Hayden (born July 30, 1981 in Owensboro, Kentucky), nicknamed The Kentucky Kid, is an American professional motorcycle racer, who won the MotoGP World Championship in 2006.

As a youth, racing others twice his age in CMRA, Hayden would often start the race from the back of the starting grid while a family or crew member held his bike upright because he could not touch the ground. Later, at age 17, he was racing factory Honda RC45 superbikes while still in high school. In 1999, he won the AMA Supersport championship on board a privateer Honda. In 2001, his first full season as an AMA superbike racer, he came within 40 points of winning the championship, finishing behind only champion Mat Mladin and runner-up Eric Bostrom. The 2002 season, however, would see Hayden answering the bell: he won the Daytona 200 on a Honda Superbike en route to becoming the youngest ever AMA Superbike Champion, defeating reigning treble champion Mat Mladin, among others. He also entered the World Superbike round at Laguna Seca, making a solid 4th in the first race before colliding with Noriyuki Haga in race two.

Andrea Iannone (born 9 August 1989 in Vasto, Province of Chieti) is an Italian Grand Prix motorcycle road racer who currently competes in the Moto2 world championship, for the Italian Speed Master Team.

He started on pocket bikes and became a championship front runner. He participated on the Italian and Spanish championships before moving to World Championship in 2005. On 4 May 2008 he claimed his first win at Shanghai in China under wet conditions. Until this point he had never finished higher than ninth, at the Turkish Grand Prix, and French Grand Prix in 2007, although he had qualified as high as seventh. In 2009 he won the first two races, establishing himself as a championship contender, however he faded to seventh overall, with only one more win. During the race at Misano, Iannone provoked an accident with Pol Espargaró. After the incident, images showed the riders arguing in the gravel and Iannone headbutted Espargaró. Iannone then said "he disgusts me, as does his bike. Spaniards are like that", which were heavily criticised, before he released a press statement apologising to Espargaró.