Every year after the Motocross of Nations, the never-ending bench-racing question comes up: What if America just raced Europe? And what about the rest of the world?
The argument usually comes up after Team USA, which represents a nation larger and more populated than most, wins the Peter Chamberlain Cup. The U.S. is just bigger than European powers like Belgium, England, France, Italy, and the rest. The U.S. is also much more populated than large southern hemisphere countries like Australia, New Zealand and South Africa.
So who would win if Team USA, no wait, make that Team USA/Canada took on all of Europe, with the Rest of the World thrown in to make it a motocross battle royale? In other words, let’s have a Ryder Cup for Motocross!
For starters, let’s take the top seven guys on 450s (or MX1) for each of the three regions, and then the top three 250 riders (MX2) for three teams of ten.
We will base it on pure speed and not the most recent injury reports. (In other words, Europe gets Tony Cairoli, North America gets the just-injured Mike Alessi, and the Rest of the World gets Ben Townley.
Of course guys like David Vuillemin, Nick Wey, Ivan Tedesco, Josh Hill, Billy Mackenzie, Nico Aubin, Andrew McFarlane, and more could easily fit on their respective teams, but we only have room for 10, for argument’s sake.
Based on 2008 point standings plus a few other little nuances (gotta get a Canadian in there for Steve Matthes and Danny Brault), here is what the teams might look like:
Team USA/Canada
James Stewart
Tim Ferry
Andrew Short
Mike Alessi
Davi Millsaps
Broc Hepler
Colton Facciotti
Ryan Villopoto (250)
Ryan Dungey (250)
Trey Canard (250)
Team Europe
David Philippaerts
Steve Ramon
Ken De Dycker
Jonathan Barragan
Max Nagl
Sebastien Pourcel
Marc De Reuver
Tony Cairoli (250)
Tommy Searle (250)
Shaun Simpson (250)
Rest of the World
Ben Townley
Chad Reed
Josh Coppins
Michael Byrne
Cody Cooper
Antonio Balbi
Dan Reardon
Tyla Rattray (250)
Brett Metcalfe (250)
Martin Davalos (250)
So if they ran three motos, and all three scores counted for each of these 10 riders, which team would win: North America, Europe or the Rest of the World? We want you to tell us your answer and leave us a comment!
