10. NEW COVER With his dominant performance in the last moto at the 2011 Motocross of Nations, Ryan Villopoto landed on the December '11 front page.
9. RC IN '98 The November/December '98 cover featured Ricky Carmichael for the first time, but not in a good way. RC and Team USA went down in defeat in muddy old England at the hands of a ridiculously skilled mud rider from Belgium, the great Stefan Everts.
8. DECEMBER '06 Speaking of Everts, we put him on the subscribers’ cover for his dramatic win in 2006 over James Stewart at the Motocross of Nations (again in England). Everts riding into the sunset that day was one of the all-time great walk-off wins in racing history, and Simon Cudby grabbed the same view everyone else had of Everts that day for the cover.
7. JULY '02 One of my all-time favorite issues. Sir Jack Burnicle shot this photo of David Bailey back in 1986 on the day Team USA's Bailey, Ricky Johnson, and of course Johnny O'Mara rode into the record books as the most dominant team the race has ever seen. EJ wrote up a fantastic piece about that day at Maggiora.
6. DECEMBER '10 Trey Canard earned a cover last year for winning the Lucas Oil AMA 250 Motocross title and being a part of another victorious version of Team USA, this time in Colorado.
5. JANUARY '10 After winning the AMA Motocross title in the 250 class and earning a surprising win against the heavily favored Italians at the 2009 MXoN in Italy, Ryan Dungey got Page 1 billing for his terrific performance in his first 450 outdoor race.
4. JANUARY '08 In one of the all-time great rides in MXoN history, Ryan Villopoto absolutely blew the rest of the world away on his KX250F, winning both motos at Budds Creek—something no MX2/Lites rider had done before (or since, for that matter). Shot by Simon Cudby.
3. DECEMBER '05 In his one and only appearance for Team USA, Kevin Windham snatched the cover after he and Ivan Tedesco followed team captain Ricky Carmichael to victory in France—Team USA's first win in five years at that point (we didn't go in '01, '02, or '04). That began what is now a seven-year winning streak. Simon Cudby got this great shot and about a thousand others that day at Ernee, France.
2. DECEMBER '00 One of my favorite covers. Ricky Carmichael basically got Team USA back on top with his excellent ride in France—his first win in the Motocross of Nations. RC led Travis Pastrana and Ryan Hughes to the win and showed the rest of the world what he was capable of—after only a single full season on a 250.
1. SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER '98 This was the race that started it all for Team USA: the '81 Motocross des Nations in Lommel, Belgium, where Johnny O'Mara joined Danny LaPorte, Chuck Sun, and Donnie Hansen in becoming the first Americans to win the MXoN. It turned the motocross world upside-down, and things have never been the same. Eric Johnson revisited the race in this issue, and we couldn't resist the chance to put a black-and-white photo by Sir Jack Burnicle on the cover.
