Let's start with a salute to Cooper Webb, Levi Kitchen, and Julien Beaumer, the lineup of the American entry this time around. After some unfortunate injuries, one big retirement, and several high-profile changes in riders for 2027, as well as business, they are the ones who ultimately accepted this mission. Webb, who is actually in the middle of going from Monster Energy Yamaha Star Racing to Rocky Mountain ATV/MC Monster Energy Team Tedder Husqvarna, will be on a brand he's never raced on before, one week after his last ride aboard a Yamaha. The multi-time SX/MX Champion has never been on a winning MXoN Team USA before and badly wants to mark that off his career checklist. 

Levi Kitchen, who just earned himself an extra half-million dollars with his 250SMX Word Championship title, will be our MX2 man in this event, hoping to help his Monster Energy/Pro Circuit Kawasaki team be part of a winning version of Team USA for the first time since—and this is an incredible stat—2011, a race which was also held here in France, though over at St. Jean D'Angely. Levi lost the 250 Pro Motocross title on the last day of the season to Cole Davies, who is not here because Monster Energy Yamaha Star Racing announced they are were not supporting any riders in the 2026 MXoN, whether they race for the U.S., New Zealand (which is Davies' country), Australia (Kayden Minear), etc.

Beaumer wasn't really on anyone's list for Team USA possibilities as recently as last Friday morning. But when Honda HRC Progressive's Chance Hymas injured his wrist in practice at the SMX World Championship Final at Thunder Ridge Nature Arena, Beaumer suddenly became an option. Hymas, who has already missed racing at MXoN for Team USA in the past due to a late-season injury, was set to move up from a 250 to a 450 to race as our Open class rider, was super-bummed. So was Team USA manager Mike Pelletier of the AMA, who was rapidly running out of options following the unavailability of Eli Tomac (retirement), Chase Sexton, Justin Barcia and Malcolm Stewart (injuries and team changes), RJ Hampshire and Aaron Plessinger (changing teams), Garrett Marchbanks (no passport), Haiden Deegan and Justin Cooper (Monster Energy Yamaha Star Racing), and more. There was a chance thatTriumph's Jordon Smith might be called upon, as he was going to be here in France anyway, but Beaumer and KTM said yes, so he will do exactly what Hymas was going to do: move up to a 450 and race it for the first time professionally in a Motocross of Nations (That was something that Jo Shimoda did last year for Japan, and he put in an excellent ride for Japan).

Team USA is not the only unit here that's missing some top riders. Australia, two-times the defending champion, will almost certainly surrender its title as the brothers Lawrence, Hunter and Jett, both let their federation know a year ago that they were taking the fall of '26 off. Besides, Jett's ongoing ankle drama caused him to shut it down for '26 early anyway, which means the top three bikes in this event (based on last year's win for Australia) will be: #1 Jed Beaton, #2 Alex Larwood, #3 Aaron Tanti. 

Looking further down the list, Germany will not have AMA Supercross Champion Ken Roczen, nor '25 MX2 World Champion Simon Langenfelder. Japan will be without Shimoda, who has had a year full of injuries dating back to December last year with his neck injury. The Netherlands will not have Kay de Wolf, and Spain will not have Ruben Fernandez, both of whom were also injured... 

Rather than dwell on all of the absentees (which I've done for too long now), let's celebrate and root for the guys who are here: Team USA's Webb, Kitchen, and Beaumer; Spain's newly-crowned stars Jorge Prado (SMX World Champion), Guillem Farres (MX2 World Champion) and Francisco Garcia (EMX250 Champion); Belgium's Coenen brothers (Lucas and Sacha) and Liam Everts; the Netherlands' Jeffrey Herlings and Glen Coldenfoff; the strong home French team of Tim Vialle, Romain Febvre, and Mathis Valin; our friendly neighbors to the north in Canada with Dylan Wright, Tanner Ward, and Dylan Rempel; and old friends like Mikkel Harrup (Denmark), Valentin Guillod (Switzerland), Enzo Lopes (Brazil), and just everyone else who made the effort and expense to get here. We all thank you!

Here's a deeper preview by Jason Thomas (who is also here after a very long season).

On a personal note, I've been lucky enough to come to the Motocross of Nations here quite a few times over the years, going back to 1993, and usually with my good friends Jeff Cernic and Larry "Moe" Sidor. I was here in France in 2000 and in 2005 when Ricky Carmichael led the way to Team USA wins, and then in '11 when the Ryans, Villopoto and Dungey, took Team USA to a sixth straight win. In 2023, we were here in Ernée to see Jett Lawrence win the final moto and the home French team take the win... But I almost didn't make it this time because I did not realize that if your U.S. passport expires within three months of departure, they won't let you on the plane! We didn't realize this until we were at the Pittsburgh Airport on Tuesday evening. So, I dropped my wife Sabrina and son Vance at the airport, drove straight to Washington D.C. (about five hours), and was at the U.S. Passport Office at 8 a.m. After jumping through some hoops and filling out a ton of paperwork, they got me sorted and on an overnight plane to Paris on Wednesday night/Thursday morning. I finally caught up with the family in Versailles, rented a car and drove us out here to the northwest of France in Normandy. It was a 48-hour slog through multiple airports, government offices, two hotels... Ugh. I can empathize with the grind in just getting here, and I can't even imagine trying to get over here to race, just a couple of days after the SMX finale at that. Salute to the riders and teams. We're here, finally! And we can't wait. 

Besides JT, Tom Journet is here for Racer X Films (though not This is Lawrence, unfortunately), so we will do our best on coverage from this afternoon's starting gate pick ballot, tomorrow's qualifiers, and of course Sunday's three main races. There's also a Yamaha BluCru Championship, and Sunday morning's B Final (in which I expect to root for the Irish, as seemingly always!)  Here's the weekend schedule and times for MXGP-TV.com streaming and CBS Sports Network back home!

Time to head to the track, go Team USA!

Check out Tom Journet's first video of the weekend, featuring some interviews from the paddock here on Friday.

MXoN is More Wide Open Than You Think (Jason Weigandt)

Team USA once again enters a Motocross of Nations in Europe without its first pick of talent, either due to injury or teams and riders not wanting to go. By my estimates, the last time Team USA sent a squad to Europe with the exact three riders it wanted was 2014! That squad had Jeremy Martin, Ryan Dungey, and Eli Tomac. Ever since then the team is a compromise, unless it takes place in the USA. This year, Cooper Webb is jumping on a brand-new bike for this race and Julien Beaumer is racing a 450 for the first time. It’s a lot.

But! Team USA is not the only one compromised. Just about every other contending team this year has a big question mark coming into the race. Check it out. The French home team’s 250 rider, Mathis Valin, got hurt in June and hasn’t raced since, he’s in for the weekend but his condition is unsure. Same for Team Belgium, which should be amazing with the Coenen twins and Liam Everts, but Lucas Coenen has not finished a race since June, either, after he went down in a qualifying-race crash. He’s back for this weekend, but is he really back? Also, the Dutch team has Jeffrey Herlings but lost Kay de Wolf to injury. So, Glenn Coldenhoff is back, now racing MXoN for the 14th straight year. But this year he’s on a 250! He hasn’t done that at this race since 2014. Oh, Team Spain is very strong with Jorge Prado and Guillem Farres, but Ruben Fernandez is out with injury so EMX250 Champ Francisco Garcia will jump on a 450 for the weekend. Garcia was actually on a 450 at this race last year but he struggled. He’s clearly taken huge steps as a rider this year in winning that EMX title, and you might remember him from a Southwick appearance where he ran top-seven for a lot of the day in the 250 class. So, he’s definitely better than last year. Good enough for his team to win? We’ll see.

Because MXoN lets teams drop one scores, a team missing one top rider isn’t necessarily a death sentence. If one rider is really bad, you can drop one of those bad scores. It leads to less margin of error, though. Everyone has to stay out of trouble and avoid bad luck if that’s how it’s going to go. Either way, I think all of these teams dealing with some sort of injury recovery or replacement, or a rider switching displacements, makes the weekend harder to predict. That’s pretty exciting!

Check out the last few #6 Husqvarna riders for Team USA...

Silly Season Action (Weigandt)

Big day in the sport on Thursday as October 1 marked the first day riders can talk about new contracts, and also marked the schedule drop for Monster Energy AMA Supercross and the AMA Pro Motocross Championship. I went to Baltimore, Maryland, yesterday to host a press conference announcing the first supercross ever in Baltimore. We had local pros Justin Rodbell and Max Sanford on hand, as the Budds Creek boys finally get themselves a supercross race at home! The schedule is highlighted by a return of the northeastern set with Foxborough, East Rutherford, and Pittsburgh back on, and also San Antonio joins the schedule.

As for silly season, Cooper Webb’s deal with Husky is out in the open now since he’s racing the bike at MXoN this weekend. We’ve seen Aaron Plessinger in Triumph colors. Justin Barcia will be going to Twisted Tea Suzuki, and we don't know who will get the Ducati seats he and Dylan Ferrandis have vacated. Now we wait on Kawasaki to see Malcolm Stewart on a Monster Energy Kawasaki KX450, and…what about Chase Sexton? Will he still be with that team? Matthes seems to think Sexton is now out of his Kawasaki deal, but where does he go? That will be the biggest bouncing ball to follow this off-season.

Final Go (Mitch Kendra)

A few notes on the final races for:

-Eli Tomac: 13–11 for 12th overall

-Dylan Ferrandis: 22-8 for 15th overall

-Marshal Weltin: 21-19 for 21st overall in 250SMX

-Rockstar Energy Husqvarna factory racing SMX team

-Mikkel Harrup's final USA race before 2027 MXGP contract: 12-22 for 18th overall

Haarup’s Instagram recap:

New Numbas (Mitch Kendra)

The American Motorcyclist Association (AMA) released the new numbers for the 2027 Monster Energy SuperMotocross World Championship and here are the key ones to know:

-3 new career numbers: Cole Davies (#5); Ryder DiFrancesco (#10); and Jorge Prado (#61)

-Lowest non-career number: #16 Chance Hymas (he skipped #13, which the AMA lets riders do).

-#19 for Julien Beaumer, despite missing all of supercross with his back injury.

-Rider to go from triple digits to lowest double digits: #42 Landen Gordon (raced 2026 as #180)

-Only rider to repeat ‘26 number for ‘27 (without it being career number): #54 Benny Bloss

-First national numbers for the Coenen brothers: #64 Sacha and #79 Lucas

-Final double-digit number: #99 Roan Van De Moosdijk

For more on the numbers, check out my deep dive.

2027 Yamaha Intro (Keefer)

Steve Matthes and I headed to GH to ride the slightly updated 2027 Yamaha YZ450F Thursday and you can watch that over on Racer X's YouTube channel right here:

Hey, Watch It!

Another good interview from Prado with Adam Cianciarulo and Justin Brayton after the race

AP Designs custom painted Eli Tomac retirement helmet:

Cooper Webb: I’M JOINING TEAM TEDDER!

SMX Insider | Season 4 Episode 38 | SMX Finals Review

Swap Moto Live caught up with Julien Beaumer as he shook down a Red Bull KTM 450 before heading to France:

Luke Fauser at Pleasure Valley Raceway (PVR) last weekend for the Travis Pastrana Pro Challenge.

Ryan Sipes' latest video...

Head-Scratching Headline/s of the Week 

“Billy Joel Auctioning Off More Than 70 Bikes From His Massive Motorcycle Collection”—Road and Track

"Team Germany bereit für das Motocross of Nations"—Press Release
Which translates to “Team Germany ready for the Motocross of Nations”

"AMA U.S. ATV Motocross Team Reclaims FIM Quadcross of Nations Title"—AMA

"Escaped emu wins wrestling match in middle of England road"—UPI

"Tennessee inmate is in critical condition after botched execution, lawyer says"—New York Times

followed up by...

"Tennessee calls off its next execution after failed attempt"—New York Times

"Is the Taco Bell ultra marathon the toughest event in sports and why is the answer a resounding yes?"—Fox News

"LeBron James Using Helicopter to Commute from Philadelphia to New York After Joining 76ers"—Bleacher Report

Random Notes

November 2026 Issue Cover Posters featuring LaLa Turner are available now on racerxbrand.com:

lachlan turner Cover poster