MXGP Insider No.17: MXoN Teams?

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.

An off weekend in the GPs has allowed everyone a little breather, as we are just over halfway through the season in what has been an interesting, if not always exciting year. Next up is the Italian GP at Maggiora, in what should be a real cracking event as Antonio Cairoli will look to win in front of his home crowd. Last year, Gautier Paulin denied him in a cracking race but with him out of the picture, it’ll be down to Clement Desalle, who has actually won five of the last six MXGP motos. Speaking of last year, it was at this track that we saw the emergence of Aleksandr Tonkov as a force on the MX2 scene. He’d always been fast but hadn’t really done anything of note until Maggiora, where he won the qualifying race and would have had an Overall podium if not for a last corner attempt at a pass, which saw him ghost ride the bike over the line. The FIM ruled that he wasn’t in control of his vehicle and so dropped him way down the field, but that really brought the Russian into the limelight. Word around the paddock was that it was as a direct result of the team buying a GEICO Honda engine before that round and while that may or may not be true, the end result is that Tonkov got a lot better and ended up with a factory Husqvarna ride.

As always, I’ve got one eye on the Motocross of Nations in Latvia, trying to work out who will be riding there and how they will perform. The biggest dilemma that I can see is Team Belgium, who have to drop one from Clement Desalle, Jeremy van Horebeek and Kevin Strijbos onto a 250. None of them are exactly small guys and all of them are riding well on the 450, especially Desalle and van Horebeek. With Ken de Dycker struggling with injuries, I’d say that Strijbos needs to get himself a RM-Z250 and start working on that, because he’s the prime candidate to ride the smaller machine. Good news for the Dutch, though, as Glenn Coldenhoff seems to be recovering well from his serious injuries (according to his Instagram feed). With him and Jeffrey Herlings, they will always have an outside shot, although the pressure is pretty immense on the third guy to do well. Speaking of the third guy, Team France have some real tough choices to make regarding their team. Gautier Paulin is a definite, but after him you need to pick two riders from Christophe Pourcel, Jordi Tixier, Marvin Musquin, Steven Frossard, Dylan Ferrandis, Romain Febvre and probably a few more I’ve forgotten. The opposite seems to be the case for Team USA, as riders seem to be ruling themselves out with Dungey apparently saying he now won’t go. Barcia and Villopoto are injured, Stewart and DeCoster don’t get along (although I’d hope they could put aside their differences) which together with Trey Canard and Jeremy Martin is still a formidable team.

On a totally different subject, the Mexican GP did a presentation at St Jean D’Angely for the upcoming race and I have to be honest, it looks extremely impressive. The whole thing is being built from scratch and judging from the video and slideshow we saw, they’ve done a very good job. It was enough to make me want to go there…. Which is something I thought I’d never say about Mexico…