MXGP Insider No.23: Injured Herlings
Welcome to our weekly web-exclusive column, Transmoto‘s MXGP Insider. Penned each week by Vurbmoto’s David Bulmer, the MXGP Insider will present the story-behind-the-stories of the European motocross scene.
Unfortunately the major talking point in the GP world this week is the broken leg of Jeffrey Herlings. I was there at the Stefan Everts Charity Race, and indeed chatted with him before the 85cc race and at that stage he was acting as he always does – pumped to be at a motocross event. According to a lot of the other attending GP riders, they would have also ridden the 85cc class, if they had an 85 to race. In the end it was just Jeffrey Herlings, Ken de Dycker (seriously) and Kenny van Dueren who took on the challenge of the smaller machines and as we all know now, only two of those riders finished. Interestingly, Jeffrey was in second place at the time of his crash and I honestly don’t think he was going to win as Dutch kid, Roan van de Moosdijk (remember the name) was really railing out front and wasn’t getting caught by the #84. If Herlings can ride a 250F as fast as it can be ridden, then he can surely ride an 85 to it’s maximum potential as well… which means that van de Moosdijk was doing exactly that, with the added speed of weighing a fair bit less. Basically, what I’m trying to say is that these kids rail!
Anyway, Herlings has had surgery on his broken femur and has since put on his social networks that “it’s not over till it’s over”, so I’m assuming it all went pretty well and that he still has hope for being crowned 2014 MX2 World Champion. At the moment, Jordi Tixier is 145 points (Febvre is 178 and Ferrandis is 191) behind Herlings with eight motos remaining, meaning he needs to score 18.25 points every race. Or in real-terms, third or better in every race will be enough. Now in theory, Tixier should be able to manage that with one less rival to contend with and with himself supposedly being the second best MX2 rider in the class, however Tixier has been known to really feel the pressure and this task definitely won’t be easy. Glenn Coldenhoff will return at some stage, as will Arnaud Tonus and all the other riders will all be upping their game in the coming weeks to try and get their first victories. Suddenly (arguably) the most predictable championship has become the most wide open and the most exciting.
Then of course, there is the message from Herlings and the fact he has until September 14 to be fit for the final GP of the season, which is being held in Mexico where there is a strong possibility of there being a weakened field. He has 54 days to recover and be fit enough to race, and hope that Tixier can’t dominate these GPs. Right now my money is still on Herlings to win this title but the Czech GP this weekend has become a can’t-miss spectacle and it will go a long way to seeing what kind of Jordi Tixier we will likely to be seeing in the next few weeks. If Tixier does win it, it will certainly be a black eye for the French federation who picked Dylan Ferrandis over Tixier for the MXoN team.
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