MXGP Insider No.14: Ryan’s Absence

Transmoto’s weekly web-exclusive column, the MXGP Insider, penned by David Bulmer, presented by KTM Australia. 

So we are now just a few days away from the British GP, which, (I’m saying this as an unbiased observer) is probably the best event on the MXGP calendar. It also marks the start of the middle third of the series which features some absolutely cracking tracks around Europe. The week after Matterley Basin is Villars Sous Ecot, then onto Maggiora, Teutschenthal, Uddevalla and Kegums, all of which should provide some awesome action and really showcase the MXGP spectacle in the best light.

Hopefully at some stage, Ryan Villopoto will re-join the action as the announcement has once again come out that’ll he be sitting out this latest race. Speaking with Steve Dixon (the British GP promoter) at Trentino a few weeks ago, he told me that pre-sales are 65% up from 2014 and this was no doubt due to the American’s participation and while those tickets can’t get un-sold, fingers crossed that now it’s come out he won’t be there racing (or indeed in person), fans won’t decide not to bother coming themselves. It is a big shame for the event and the series but this injury seems like “how long is a piece of string” in terms of return-date so who truly knows when he’ll be back. And recent photos of Xavier Boog training with KRT certainly don’t help the situation out…

Making up for his absence is Mike Alessi in a long-awaited return to the World Championship scene (although many thought he should have returned sooner) who’ll be riding this GP and the French one next weekend. Although he doesn’t bring the hype of Villopoto, it’ll still be interesting to see how he fares against the GP regulars in these couple of races and will also help keep the American audience that has dwindled in recent rounds. It is definitely a strange move by the Motoconcepts team who have shunned the Lucas Oil AMA Pro Motocross Nationals in recent years after a couple of incidents and now mainly race in Canada. Hopefully it is pre-cursor to a full-time move for 2016 as I think many people would love to see him on this side of the pond and don’t really know about too much of the “baggage” that he carries stateside.

A rider that I’m pretty disappointed not to be watching though is Tommy Searle, who just seems to lurch from one injury to another this year. Everything seemed really promising in pre-season with reports that his speed was almost matching that of Cairoli but after six rounds, his season hasn’t really begun, with big crashes in Thailand and now Spain. His 1-1 performance at Matterley a couple of years back against Jeffrey Herlings was still one of the best GP memories and it’s a shame not to be seeing him out there again.

And finally, it seems like the TBA on the calendar can finally be taken off and replaced with Mantova as strong rumours that have persisted for a couple of weeks, seem to have been confirmed. Until it goes up on the MXGP website, it can’t be given as 100% definite but all signs point to a third trip to Italy as a replacement for the Brazilian round in August.