As we get ready for the return of the Monster Energy FIM Motocross of Nations to U.S. soil on September 24-25 at RedBud in Buchanan, Michigan, we’re going to count down some of our favorite Team USA moments over the years. We’ll start with 1996 and a moment that didn’t actually happened during the competition, but it did set the stage for a dominant performance by the Americans after two years of defeat.
In 1996 Honda’s Jeremy McGrath was on top of the AMA Supercross world, but Kawasaki’s Jeff Emig got the better of him in an epic outdoor duel for the 250 Pro Motocross Championship. The two would join forces together as two-thirds of Team USA at the ’96 FIM Motocross of Nations, set to take place on the infield of the Jerez road racing circuit in the southwest of Spain. They would be joined on the team by two-time AMA 125 National Champion Steve Lamson who, along with Emig, was on a defeated Team USA the previous year in Slovakia, where they were upset by Belgium.
The race in Spain seemed tailormade for the Americans, as the track had an obvious AMA flavor to it, with big tabletop and double jumps, and even a quadruple downhill jump that had the Grand Prix riders up in arms, because at the time the FIM frowned from supercross elements so much that a rule banning them found its way into the rulebook. However, the rule apparently did not apply to the MXoN, which brough the AMA riders into the equation, and with them, the expectation that they would be on a show for the Spanish fans. After all, McGrath was at the peak of his dominance and popularity as Team USA touched down in Spain.
![Jeremy McGrath]()
Jeremy McGrath Davey Coombs ![Jeremy McGrath]()
Jeremy McGrath Davey Coombs ![Steve Lamson]()
Steve Lamson Davey Coombs ![Steve Lamson]()
Steve Lamson Davey Coombs ![Jeff Emig]()
Jeff Emig Davey Coombs
As soon as practice started, some of the GP riders were complaining about the track. According to Cycle News, “The Jerez circuit was a remarkable track in that it was set high in the hard-pack foothills above the road racing circuit, yet had perfect soil after hundreds of truckloads of red clay were hauled in from 30 miles away. The organizers then used the dirt to shape eight or nine jumps around the hilly circuit, including one long downhill tabletop that started out as a quadruple jump.”
“This is not the Supercross des Nations, this is the Motocross des Nations,” complained Belgium’s 500cc rider Joel Smets, “and there’s too much of the supercross obstacles out there for a fair race!”
The arguments got to the point where the Spanish organizers decided to fix the jump, but not until after the first set of practices. The thing is, as big as the jump was, it wasn’t much of a challenge to Lamson, who was in the first practice for 125cc riders. So he decided to put on a show for the GP riders, as well as the gathered media. Back to the Cycle News report:
“As several top European riders complained about the infamous ‘No Double Jump’ rule that exists in FIM Grand Prix motocross, Lamson was blowing the crowd’s minds with his heel-clickers and whips.” And when their practices got started, “McGrath and Emig joined in, and by the time the first practice was over, the bulldozers were on their way up the hill. The quadruple was altered to one long downhill tabletop, though the landing was more of a rolling edge than anything.”
It made little difference to the Americans whether it was a double, triple, tabletop or even quadruple, they kept launching it, and the crowd was eating it up. And that it turned seemed to psyche out most of the European riders, who were way behind in supercross at the time, though that of course would change over the years to come. Home-field advantage was already lost, and the Americans would dominate in a way they had not since the 1986 MXoN in Maggiora, Italy.
McGrath would win his two motos (125/250 and 250/Open), Lamson would become the first 125cc rider to win a moto outright when he topped the 125/Open moto, and Emig would muscle the big KX500 to the win in his class. (And you will see Lamson use that big downhill to pass Emig for the lead in the first moto at the 42:30 mark of the video below from the '96 MXON at Jerez, Spain.)
And to think it all started in practice with a big quadruple jump!
