Mad grinning is the sole domain of kids. American JD Beach is on the left. image: thanks to red bull (we have wings)

Red Bull MotoGP Rookies' Cup rider JD Beach is fitting into the mold of what the world championship will seemingly require of MotoGP riders in 2011 or so: he's fast, already has a lifetime of dirt track experience but also is well-vested in the 250-inspired riding style that Dani Pedrosa, Andrea Dovizioso and others have adopted. An American, Beach is just sixteen years old, but given that this is just his second season of roadracing, it's interesting that he's finished second in the three Red Bull MotoGP Rookie Cup Races held this season.

Maybe it's his roommate.

Beach sleeps on the couch in reigning world champion Casey Stoner's Monaco apartment when he's in Europe.

About as far away from the glitz and excess of Monaco is where Beach originated. A dirt-tracker from the age of four, Beach and his dad raced dirt ovals all over the west coast.

The lanky teen racer fronts his bio: "I started dirt-tracking when I was four years old. I started doing it for fun, and then it just kind of went in seriously. We started traveling more and doing bigger races. I was born in Washington state, and I started dirt-tracking there, and then slowly started going down to California and Oregon, and then I started coming back East and doing all the Nationals, back in Springfield, Illinois and Indy and stuff."

Beach made the Red Bull Rookie Cup cut in 2006, finished eighteenth at Valencia last year but has been at the sharp end of the results sheet thus far this year, clocking three-second place finished. How? Why?

"That's one thing I haven't figured out yet," the teen explains. "Because from the last race at Valencia last year, I was 18th. I was quite, quite, quite a few seconds off the pace. And then I did one test in the off-season, and then I went out for our first Red Bull test, and I ended up second fastest. I think I just trained a little bit harder, and just practiced."

Training with Casey Stoner and just being in the occasional periphery of the current MotoGP world champion probably hasn't hurt Beach's ascent in racing. He describes how the Stoner connection was made and what it's like to train with him.

"Alpinestars introduced us to him, and we started talking and having dinner and stuff, and it ended up being a really good friendship. Basically, because this year I don't have anybody to travel with, so him and his wife just welcomed me, and I can stay with them whenever I need to."

"They have a little fold-out bed, I sleep on that."

"It's cool, because he just knows so much. He doesn't want to push me too much, because all my muscles are still developing and stuff. But it's nice, because I'm training with the World Champion, so I know I'm doing something right."

Stoner, like some Australians, is a light-switch of intensity. He can be calm and collected, almost laid back; then, when it's go-time, out comes the 1000-yard stare and the intensity and almost prickly nature of one Eddie Lawson.

Beach has noticed the switch. "It matters what part of the season he's in, or how he's doing," he explains, "because when he's doing good, he's more laid-back, and we go and just train and have fun. But when it's getting mid-season and you really need the results, he starts getting tense and doing good and stuff."

When he's stateside, JD Beach can be found in Kentucky at the Gillum family home. "Yeah. I'm living with the Gillims, which are the Haydens' cousins. I basically moved there full-time now when I'm not in Europe. We've been riding and training and having fun. We ride every day."