We gave you the qualifying results yesterday but those weren’t for real. Today, here in Lativa, the Motocross of Nations went off and was very much real. The sandy track wasn’t touched much from yesterday’s races and so as the day went on it got rougher and rougher. The weather was perfect all day with some cloud cover and a cool breeze blowing.
When it was all said and done the red, white and blue stood atop the podium but it wasn’t the country that many people reading this would have hoped for. Team France won the Motocross of Nations for the second time ever with some great rides and none greater than Kawasaki’s Gauthier Paulin who came from the back to win both of his motos and was a in a class by himself. Steven Frossard had some great rides as well in the MX3 class and the team’s MX2 rider Dylan Ferrandis showed good speed.
The French riders all got good starts, stayed off the ground and won with ease by ten points over Team Belgium. This one wasn’t really much of nail biter, folks. With many people questioning some of France’s rider choices they showed that they knew what they were doing.
Belgium, its usual solid and fast self, was second with MX3 rider Kevin Strijbos winning the second moto and MX1 Yamaha rider Jeremy Van Horebeek performing once again at the biggest motocross race all year.
Team USA lost for the third straight year and all day long the trio of Red Bull KTM’s Ryan Dungey, GEICO Honda’s Eli Tomac and Star Yamaha’s Jeremy Martin were fighting an uphill battle. Martin went down hard yesterday in qualifying and broke his foot and some toes (unconfirmed) and soldiered through with some heroic rides.
Dungey rode very well in his first moto to finish second behind the disappearing Paulin but in his second moto he fell early on and was forced to come from the back.
Tomac didn’t get the starts he needed on the day and in the third moto he actually went down in the first turn. With Eli on the inside, USA really needed a good start from him and his fall hurt. In his first moto Tomac charged hard to get up to sixth but then hit a wall as he dealt with arm pump. After making some front end changes, Tomac showed the world what he could do after that first turn crash. He got on his horse and came from dead last to third and almost second. This included a mid-race stall as well. There were times that Tomac was going two seconds faster than anyone else on the track. It wasn’t enough to get USA to the top step but it was a very impressive ride nevertheless.
And without Team Great Britain’s Shaun Simpson breaking a chain late in the second moto the Brits would’ve been third overall on the day. CLS Kawasaki’s Tommy Searle dropped down to the MX2 class on the day and ended up winning the overall there. MX3 rider Dean Wilson also had a solid day although afterwards admitted that the short break between his motos had left him “knackered”.
Every team but France seemed to have something go wrong or crashes that held them back. As far as the USA is concerned, with Martin hurt pretty badly and riding at maybe 80 percent, Dungey crashing early in the third moto and Tomac going down in the first turn (also in the third moto) there were too many mistakes made to have a hope of winning and it took another teams misfortune to even get the USA on the box.
Next year the race will be back in France and with the hometown boys running the 1,2 and 3 things will be very interesting. As far as the USA is concerned, one loss is a fluke, two is a happening and three just might be a trend. USA is now tied for its longest MXDN drought when they have sent a team.
