The annual Olympics of Motocross, better known as the Motocross of Nations, takes place this weekend in Kegums, Latvia, which is about 40 minutes outside of the capitol city of Riga. This event is always exciting and allows different storylines to emerge and different riders to get the spotlight. The weather has been seasonally cool and the crowd appears to have brought plenty of air-horns and chainsaws to the event.
Rains overnight soaked the sandy track and made it real soft early but as the day went on it got broken down a bit to a hard bottom crust. The track wasn’t real tricky but there were some nice sized sand whoops that got rough. In fact one section by the start straight got so rough that it claimed a couple of riders within a couple of laps in the MX2 final including Team USA’s Yamalube/Star Racing’s Yamaha’s Jeremy Martin.
Martin, his teammates Red Bull KTM’s Ryan Dungey and GEICO Honda’s Eli Tomac didn’t have the day they wanted to have but they’re going to the gate tomorrow with the eighth selection after it’s all said and done. Anywhere inside the top ten is a good pick and everything gets reset for tomorrow.
Dungey gated well in his MXGP qualifying race and soon found himself in third right onto the back of Russia’s Alexandr Tonkov. France’s Gauthier Paulin, who traditionally is very fast at this race, worked his way from about seventh or so right to the front and he would never relinquish the lead. It was a very impressive ride for the Frenchman. Belgium’s Jeremy Van Horebeek also snuck inside of Dungey when the #4 KTM rider blew out a berm. Tonkov would tip over and surprise early leader Filip Bengtsson of Sweden dropped back also after a crash.
Aussie hero Chad Reed went down early in the race and then again later on and the best he could do was a fourteenth.
In the MX2 class it was the newly crowned 8-time World Champion Antonio Cairoli who took the win despite an outside the top start. Cairoli, normally riding the 350 bike in MXGP class, rode the 250F very well and pressured leader Glenn Coldenhoff of Holland before passing him late in the race to win. As we said Martin was running fifth place and went over the bars in an ugly crash. He eventually got up and finished the race a few laps down. Last word we had was he had hurt his toe and was getting checked out but should be fine to race tomorrow. Switzerland’s Jeremy Seewer led early in the race and ended up third with France’s Dylan Ferrandis fourth and Great Britain’s Tommy Searle fifth. Puerto Rico’s Alex Martin, brother of Jeremy, ran second for a while before eventually settling for seventh in a nice ride.
Team USA’s luck went south again in the start of the MX3 qualifier when Tomac found himself on the ground and was forced to come back from dead last. With some great riding Eli worked up all the way to eighth. It was a nice showing by ET3 but not ideal for USA’s chances for the overall spot today. Out front early it was Great Britain’s Dean Wilson who led early but Belgium’s Kevin Strijbos got by and it was see ya later from there as he pulled out a nice lead. Wilson came under fire from Estonia’s Tanel Leok and then Slovania’s Tim Gajser but he held on for second.
So as we said this was for gate position in tomorrow’s race and with two crashes already happening, Team USA is hoping that it’s bad luck is out of the way today and tomorrow will be a different story.
Overall Qualifying Order for Gate Pick Tomorrow
1-Belgium
2-France
3-Great Britain
4- Netherlands
5-Italy
6-Estonia
7-Germany
8-USA
9-Switzerland
10-Russia
11-Slovania
12- Latvia
13-Sweden
14-Canada
15-Denmark
