Racer X’s Steve Matthes caught up to DeCoster after the press conference.

Racer X: Another Motocross des Nations and USA loss. But honestly yesterday went so bad and today, with Anderson’s mistake, you were down a rider. I think of it as almost a miracle win instead of Team USA blew it.
Roger DeCoster: Less than three minutes. Two and a half minutes from the end we were winning, and even with all the bad stuff that happened yesterday and then with Jason today, we got hit three times. Yesterday was actually three times by itself because in each race we had our guys go down and Cooper went down even twice.

I look at it like, what an amazing day, almost.
That’s how I feel about it, too. For these guys to turn things around the way they did and for young guys to do that, as young as they are, two of them rookies and Cooper only had his second experience, was impressive. It’s too bad that they’re not getting rewarded for their efforts because they deserved it.

"We never gave up. I think that was the biggest thing, to not just give up and settle for a podium. We fought the whole time." – Cooper Webb

Do you have words with them after a Saturday like that? Do you gather them around or do you talk to Cooper?
We talked a little bit but nobody really wants to talk about when you feel the way he feels. But he knows the way I feel about him. Alex [Martin] was really feeling bad also, not to the extent of Cooper of course. It’s a bummer. What happened to Jason, I cannot believe it.

I guess the Japanese rider didn’t know he was on the finish line but you kind of have to be aware of what’s going on…
The finish line flag, the checkered flag is there, and he should have been looking for the finish line because he was lapped.

I don’t know if I’ve ever seen that. Have you?
I’ve never seen anything like it.

It goes back to what you were saying too, though. The quality of riders at this event have a wide disparity. I also think that you spend all this money and time and effort to get here and then the ping pong ball they draw for Saturday’s gate picks puts you at a disadvantage right away if it’s a bad one.
Right. It should be decided by lap times. They should separate the riders that way. If they don’t address some of those problems the participation from the U.S. is going to… I’m sure Jason is going to think twice to be on the Motocross of Nations team in the future.

Is that something where you could call Giuseppe [Luongo, Youthstream president] personally and say, “Hey, we got to try to do something?”
I will let them know what I think but it’s not the first time I let them know. A lot of teams do really well when you see what effort they put in building this thing. Look at all this stuff. It’s impressive, a lot of things they do. But there’s a little lack of attention to the real racing part. It’s nice to make all this show and to build it, but you cannot forget why we’re here in the first place.

Jason Anderson’s moto before that, phenomenal. Probably the real story. Broken foot and got a holeshot. Herlings caught him but he held him off. Great ride.
Yeah, it was awesome. He was impressive.

Did you say anything to the team after this one?
I did talk to both Alex and Cooper, but I’ve not had a chance to talk to Jason yet. We will spend some more time together later today.

O’Show [Johnny O’Mara], [David] Bailey, and RJ [Rick Johnson] were here brought in by the organizers. You were part of that team. That made it a really cool deal. I’m glad they were here. They all seemed to be happy. You were a big part of it. That was special.
Yeah, it was really cool. It was nice to see them being together and being honored. It’s really good memories. What they did, to the extent of how they dominated, people forget sometimes. They do 1-2, 1-2, 1-2 [in the three motos], you see today how difficult that is.

One of these years I’m going to talk to you when USA wins. Hopefully next year, right?
I sure hope so.