The wait, and the suspense, is over. The United States is going to France to race in the Monster Energy FIM Motocross of Nations this year. Aaron Plessinger (MXGP) and Christian Craig (Open) will field 450 machines with RJ Hampshire (MX2) on a 250F. Usually at this point in the year we’ve known who will be representing Team USA at the Motocross of Nations for weeks, if not more. But this year, not so much. To get a better view into the delay, and why it was so hard to fill the roster, we got in touch with longtime Team USA mainstay, Christina Denney.
READ: TEAM USA FINALLY ANNOUNCES MOTOCROSS OF NATIONS ROSTER
Racer X: It’s done, the team is formed, we’re going. Is this a huge relief for everyone involved with the team effort?
Christina Denney: It’s a huge relief, yes.
You must have been feeling some heavy pressure to make sure this thing happened.
Honestly, Saturday, in Charlotte, there was a lot of concern on if we were even going to be able to go or not. We knew that wasn’t an option. Not going was not an option. So we all really put our heads down, came together, and really tried to figure out what we were going to do, and how we could get it done. It took a few more days after the weekend, obviously, to really make it final, but we all really worked together. There’s been a lot of work over the last twelve months, and now we’ve got two weeks to crunch the rest of it, but we’re happy with where we’re going.
You mentioned concern that there might not be a Team USA effort this year. Where was that concern coming from? From within your own camp, or from outside?
We asked advice from other team members and other managers, and at times the advice we got was to not go. Myself, Roger [De Coster], Mike [Pelletier], Paul [Perebijnos], we all knew that wasn’t an option. We had to show up. Each week it was incredibly stressful, and it hit especially hard this past weekend. We never imagined we’d still be talking about it during SMX.
Talk about what was so difficult, and what took so long. There are some injuries, but there are healthy guys too.
It’s the year of change. The number of riders who are changing to different teams feels like much more than usual. So many of the riders we would have loved to have race on Team USA are switching to new teams. With the race in October, just a week after contracts end [note; most new factory contracts begin on October 1], it really put us in a difficult situation. If a rider wanted to race, he’d have to do it on a new bike, and we all know that’s not really an option.
Well, from what I’ve heard, you still attempted that option a few times too, right?
Yeah, we tried. We tried to see if we could do it with other riders, and it wasn’t in the cards. To pressure someone to go, you don’t want that. You want a rider who is 100 percent in. To put a rider and a team in a situation that could affect the future of their relationship and performance together, from the beginning, by putting the rider on a bike they haven’t ridden, on the world stage? It’s just not super smart.
Aaron Plessinger and RJ Hampshire have been locked in for a while, right?
I think, as of Ironman, yeah, we knew those two for sure. There had been a lot of talk before that, but really, at Ironman, that was when we knew they were going to be our riders. We were really looking for a 250 rider after that. We’ve been hunting until now, when we secured that third rider [Christian Craig].
And when one rider doesn’t work, is it like having to reset the whole board of dominoes?
Yes and no. A lot of the logistics and behind the scenes stuff was done long ago. We do stuff like that long before we even know who the riders will be. I booked hotels for France last year before RedBud [Motocross of Nations]. You book the rooms, you get what you can done no matter who’s going. Even down to the team uniforms with Alpinestars. I’ve had these ordered since June. Christian Kapoukranidis was a big help with that. We have a large team, and we can’t wait to work on things like this.
Paul Perebijnos also put a deposit on a trailer way back. It’s like a hospitality trailer they use in Europe. It’s super cool. Outside of what we have already at Alpinestars, we’ll have our own compound, and it’s awesome. They call it a fishbowl. There will be desk space, space to get with the riders, to go over the track, to go over data, for them to get ready, whatever they need. We’ve never had anything like this before. It’s really cool he was able to arrange that back when he did. It’s unfortunate we weren’t able to use money from the golf tournament fundraiser to be able to give back to the teams and to help cover these kinds of expenses. With the team not being announced yet we didn’t really get a lot of support for the golf tournament, so it had to get cancelled. There weren’t enough entries for us to make the big deposit we had to commit to.
With Christian Craig getting hurt [broken elbow and dislocated hip] during supercross, then having a tough recovery, he hasn’t raced in months. Is there some concern on whether or not he’ll be ready to go?
I’d be lying if I said there wasn’t. But he’s an experienced rider. Not racing is tough, and to go and expect him to go out at race pace, it’s going to be hard. But Christian is a veteran rider with a team behind him, and he has our support. And with the sheer adrenaline that comes from this race, I think he’s going to go out and do what he needs to do.
There’s been a sentiment with some folks that there’s a lack of motivation to send a team if guys like last year’s championship trio of Eli Tomac, Chase Sexton, and Justin Cooper, aren’t on the roster. What do you say to that?
Not much, it’s ridiculous. It’s poor sportsmanship if we don’t go, especially when the federation works around our schedule to make it accommodating for us. They changed the date to help with our SMX races. They worked with us, it’s important we’re there. Not just for our country, but for the sport in general. I’ve been involved since 2016, and there have been years when maybe we didn’t have a championship caliber team going into it. But that doesn’t mean we didn’t give it our all. We did, and we always gave the riders everything we possibly could to help them perform at their highest for their team and country.
And to be fair, this team we’re sending, they’re good. They’re factory dudes.
They are. The level of competition is high, and it’s going to be very hard to beat France. It’s going to be very hard to beat Australia. But this race really comes down to consistency, and that’s what we’re focusing on. But no matter what happens, we’re going to do our best. Not showing up would be the ultimate defeat.
