Spies calls it quits
The American's career has come to an end, after being sidelined for most of this season with shoulder injuriesBen Spies has called time on a brilliant road racing carer that produced three AMA superbike titles, a world superbike title, and a four-year stint in MotoGP.
The 29-year-old Texan had signed a two-year agreement with Ducati at the end of last season to race in MotoGP in 2013 and 2014 as part of the factory-supported Ignite Pramac Racing Team.
He has been sidelined for most of this season due to an injury to his right shoulder sustained in October, 2012 while riding for Yamaha. While he began 2013 racing with Pramac, it quickly became clear that he was not fully healed from his injury and needed to undergo further rehabilitation on his shoulder. Finally, on his return to racing at Indianapolis in August, Spies had another setback when he suffered a season-ending crash during practice.
The resulting operations on both shoulders have left Spies feeling that his physical ability to ride next year remains in question and a decision was jointly made by Ducati and Ben to release the American from any requirement to race in 2014.
“I had such high hopes for racing for Ducati, and Ducati has been incredibly supportive of me during this challenging year, so I am tremendously disappointed that I have not been able to fulfil my personal goals and team goals with Ducati," Spies said. “I want to thank everyone from racing organizations, factories, teams and all my fans for helping me and supporting me throughout my career. I never dreamed that I would reach the level of success that I have over the past 20 years of racing, but the time has come to stop and I do so with great sadness.”
Spies’ three AMA superbike titles (2006-2008) came after tremendous battles with Australian hard nut and teammate Mat Mladin, and then after being snubbed for a MotoGP ride with the company the following year he instead went to Yamaha and won the world superbike title as a rookie (pictured).
In 2010 he remained with Yamaha at the Tech 3 MotoGP team, and some promising results saw him elevated to factory rider alongside Jorge Lorenzo in 2011 and 2012. But things just didn’t go to plan, and he signed for Ducati in 2013 and 2014 – a relationship which never really got off the ground.
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