John Hopkins

John "Hopper" Hopkins (born May 22, 1983) is a former motorcycle road racer based in the United States.

Hopkins began riding Motocross bikes as a child and won his first race on a MiniBike in 1986, switching to road racing full-time in 1999.

He first raced in MotoGP during 2002 for the Red Bull Yamaha WCM team on a two-stroke 500 cc bike, and joined the factory Suzuki squad a year later for a five-year spell.

The 2002 season saw Hopkins join the WCM RedBull Yamaha team alongside multiple race winner Garry McCoy.

The team was using Yamaha YZR500 motorcycles on lease from Yamaha.

Overall the YZR500 was considered to be uncompetitive that year, due to a change in the regulations allowing 990 cc four-stroke motorcycles to race against 500 cc two-stroke motorcycles.

Although the two-strokes held (on average) a 10 kg weight advantage over the four-strokes, they had between 30 and 50 less hp depending on the engine configuration used for the racetrack.

He is featured in the 2003 documentary film, Faster, and the film The Doctor, the Tornado and the Kentucky Kid (2006).

In 2003 Hopkins joined the Suzuki factory racing team.

This year he would ride a 990 cc V4 four-stroke.

In 2003 John was teamed with 2000 500cc world champion Kenny Roberts, Jr. Although he was racing a four-stroke this year, the results did not seem to come as one would have expected.

There are many theories for this, including the Suzuki's lack of power and its tendency to wear out tires faster than other bikes.

This year also saw Hopkins involved in a turn 1 crash at the Japanese Grand Prix at Motegi, he was accused of causing this crash, and was suspended for one race.

This suspension resulted in a DNS (did not start) at the Malaysian Grand Prix.

Also noteworthy for the 2003 season was the crash in Italy where Kenny Roberts, Jr.'s GSV-R Suzuki suffered an engine management failure and the bike launched into Hopkins, putting both GSV-R's out of the race.

The technology and technical advancement of the GSV-R was further developed in 2004.

Most of the refinements took place in the engine management package, making the bike easier to ride.

Towards the end of the year, the GSV-R was showing clear improvements, allowing Hopkins to move up the standings.

Unfortunately it also saw several mechanical failures, which effectively undid the hard work to develop the motorcycle.

Having qualified on the front row at Motegi, he was eliminated in a first-corner crash.

Hopkins continued with Suzuki in 2005, as the team showed promising signs after the arrival of Paul Denning as team boss following Denning's success with Suzuki's British Superbike team.

In a 2007 interview, he was questioned about being regarded as Anglo-American, with the interviewer commenting: "A lot of people don't understand your being British. As I understand it, your entire family moved over here from England, and you were raised here as a British family in America".

Hopkins proposed to his girlfriend Ashleigh in the summer of 2007 on her 21st birthday.

They married in Las Vegas in December 2007.

He raced for the Kawasaki MotoGP team in 2008, but they dropped him for 2009 due to the global economic crisis and the company's uncompetitive showings.

He has subsequently raced in both the World and British Superbike championships, finishing second in the 2011 British Superbike Championship season although injuries and alcohol problems have affected his results.

He was born to parents from Acton.

Hopkins briefly led at Donington, but his best result was a 5th place at Motegi, and he was 14th overall.

Qualifying results were often better than race results, largely due to Bridgestone tires being better suited to short runs.

Hopkins remained at Suzuki, now backed by Rizla, where he was joined by new teammate Chris Vermeulen.

He enjoyed his best season yet.

After riding a Ducati in the British Superbike Championship during the 2015 season, in 2016 he raced a Yamaha YZF-R1 for Tommy Hill's THM team partnered by Stuart Easton.

Hopkins raced previously in MotoGP, the AMA Superbike Championship, and the Superbike World Championship.

Hopkins finished the season ranked 15th, with 58 points, which put him 25 points clear of his teammate McCoy.

Overall, he finished 16th.

During 2017 he raced in the British Superbike Championship aboard a Ducati 1199 Panigale for Moto Rapido Racing, but suffered injuries from a crash at the season-finale race meeting in October, meaning he could not participate during 2018.

He has not made a full recovery, which has so far precluded hopes of a comeback, but he has become involved in rider coaching.

At the end of the season, Hopkins finished in 17th place with 29 points.

This finish put him 2 places and 7 points ahead of his teammate Kenny Roberts, Jr.

From 2020, Hopkins became a rider-coach for American Racing team helping Joe Roberts and Marcos Ramirez in Moto2.