The List: Big Days for Team USA

1975

Can’t forget Jim Pomeroy’s moto win in 1975 at Maggiora, Italy, the first for an American rider. The Bultaco-mounted Pomeroy did not lead the team to the win, but he did serve notice that the young Americans would be a force in the future.

1986

With help from his big-bike teammates David Bailey and Rick Johnson—who started on the far inside, on the first of two rows on the starting gate, and took turns pushing the competition outside—Team USA’s Johnny O'Mara blitzed the rest of the world on his Honda CR125 at Maggiora. It was the most dominant single performance by a team in MXdN history, and one of several fine performances by Johnny O’ while riding for Team USA, not to mention Bailey and RJ, who rode hand-in-hand across the finish line in the last moto.

2007

If you were at Budds Creek in 2007, then what you remember most is Ryan Villopoto’s sheer and remarkable dominance aboard his Monster Energy/Pro Circuit Kawasaki KX250F, winning both motos by mind-boggling gaps. It was also Ricky Carmichael’s last professional motocross race, and while he crashed in the first turn of his moto with RV, he came through to stomp everyone in the last moto so he and Tim Ferry could join world-beater Villopoto on the top of the podium.

1987

Back in 1987, the United States finally got to host the event for the first time, and after some back-and-forth about who should be on Team USA, the aging veteran Bob “Hurricane” Hannah was drafted to join Rick Johnson and Jeff Ward on the team. Despite some terrible mud at Unadilla, the men came through—including Hannah, who won a moto on his RM125.

1992

Team USA had too many guys to choose from in 1987, but that wasn’t the case in 1992, when suddenly many of the top riders couldn’t go to Australia (it was in the middle of the last few outdoor nationals). So the “B Team” of teenagers Mike LaRocco and Jeff Emig, plus Billy Liles, who had spent much of his career racing in Europe, were named to Team USA instead by then-team manager Roy Janson. They went down under and won it, running America’s streak to twelve in a row!

1996

Team USA’s “cup runneth over” with talent in 1996 when Jeremy McGrath, Jeff Emig, and Steve Lamson went to Jerez, Spain, and absolutely crushed the competition in the process. Lamson (who is there this year with Yamalube/Star Racing Yamaha’s Team USA debutant Jeremy Martin) became the first 125cc rider in MXoN history to win a moto outright, something that Johnny O’Mara didn’t actually do in 1986—Bailey and RJ each won those motos!

2009

Another “B Team” of sorts, but Ryan Dungey (racing his first outdoor race on a 450), Honda’s Ivan Tedesco, and Pro Circuit Kawasaki’s Jake Weimer beat Italy at home in a wild race that might have turned out much, much differently had Italy’s Tony Cairoli and Australia’s Chad Reed not tangled in the first turn at the start of the all-important final moto. This was the first of “Captain America” Dungey’s now six straight years with Team USA. 

1993 

The last year of Team USA’s thirteen-race winning streak. Jeff Emig won the 125 class, Mike Kiedrowski won the 250 class, and, in his first MXoN appearance, Jeremy McGrath grabbed a first-moto fourth, which was just enough for Team USA. In the end, Kiedrowski was the hero on the 500 with his late-race charge through the pack on that vaunted KX500!

2000 

After three tough years in the wilderness since the 1996 domination, Team USA needed a new leader, and the man who stepped up was Ricky Carmichael. Riding a Kawasaki KX250, Carmichael led Ryan Hughes and Travis Pastrana to the win in St. Jean D’Angely, France. (And Ryno’s stunning win in the first moto, in the last turn, was also a huge moment!) 

2005 

Team USA and Carmichael again on top, again in France, and this time it begins a seven-year run. His teammates this time were Kevin Windham in MX3 and Ivan Tedesco in MX2. 

1985

Team USA’s Jeff Ward, David Bailey, and Ronnie Lechien somehow emerged from a crazy three-moto day (as in three motos for everyone) in Switzerland to win, with Lechien’s epic battles with Davey Strijbos on 125s—and the Wardy/Bailey vs. David Thorpe/Kees Van der Ven battles on big bikes—really getting the whole “U.S.-against-the-World” vibe going. (Full respect to the British King of Motocross, David Thorpe, who was the outright winner that day in the individual rankings, taking two of the three motos and finishing second to the Netherlands’ Van der Ven in the other. Unfortunately, most in America recall his defeat the next year to O’Mara in the 125 than they do his beating of Wardy and Bailey in all three motos the year before.) 

1988

Four years later, Ward and Lechien were teammates and their roles switched: Wardy was on the 125 in France ’88 and Lechien on a big 500 Kawasaki. With Ricky Johnson on the 250, it was a grand day for Team USA.

2011 

For our most recent win, unfortunately, Ryan Villopoto and Ryan Dungey worked together to salvage things in France with a last-moto 1-2 that saw RV so far out front he was able to slow down and wait for Dungey so they could cross the line arm-in-arm, just like Bailey and Johnson in ’86. Blake Baggett had a tough day as our MX2 rider, getting stuck in a fence, but he did enough in the other moto to keep the USA on top for a seventh straight year.