Nostalgia is a powerful drug—but these weren’t the good memories. American motocross fans wanted a return to Team USA’s dominant days at the Motocross of Nations, and the 2022 squad held promise of doing it at RedBud. Until Sunday morning. That’s when the rain came, and the bad memories of the 2018 MXoN at this same track overwhelmed the audience. Team USA’s struggles that year will never truly be understood, but the rain and mud got a lot of the blame. Four years later, with the rain coming down again on Sunday morning, weary partiers had more bad feelings than just their hangovers. 

Thankfully, such feelings faded as soon as the gate dropped for the first moto. America’s best rider, Eli Tomac, holeshot the race from a middle gate. He won the moto. Despite the conditions, the result was really never in doubt. That’s the way it used to go at this race for Team USA. It’s about damn time.