MXGP Insider No.16: The Injury Game

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

It goes without saying that one of the biggest problems with motocross is injuries. In F1, you can pretty much guarantee that 99% of the drivers who start the championship will finish it, but in motocross, the number is definitely lower than that – a lot lower than that. Obviously, we’ve already lost Ryan Villopoto from this year’s equation and on Saturday, Clement Desalle went down hard enough (twice) to mean he didn’t score any points on Sunday. Thankfully the PR has come out saying that he’s going to try for Maggiora in a couple of weeks, but he’s now 41 points back from Nagl and carrying a tough injury. With that being said, there are still plenty of points to play for and if we are counting Romain Febvre as an outside shot (which I think we should), then Mr Desalle certainly isn’t out of the running.

In regards to Villopoto, I spoke to a couple people (who should know) regarding his situation and basically it is a huge question mark. The word is he gets checked out by another doctor soon and then they can make a decision from there, but nobody is holding their breath on that one. It does sound like he will come back over to sign autographs etc, however as far as riding goes, it could well be over for him.

I was also lucky enough to have a drink with Joel Smets on Friday night, who has some very interesting views on a number of subjects. He was very critical of the state of the tracks and how they’ve been created and also doesn’t think that the riders are any fitter than back in his day. He also talked about how “heart” plays such a critical role in a rider and that there are very few who he believes that are riding out there have the potential to become champions. One of those who he thinks is capable is Romain Febvre and on Sunday he went a long way to proving way, in front of an ecstatic home crowd. I’ve spoken about the GPs and their fans before and I truly believe that every motocross fan needs to hit up a French, Italian, Dutch or British world championship race, just to see how they do it over here. I can only imagine how awesome Ernée is going to be for the Motocross of Nations in September.

In fact, they made an announcement in the press conference that France will have another MXoN before 2020 and after speaking with some French journalists, it could well be at Villars-Sous-Ecot. This definitely won’t please some of the riders who were scathing in their opinions about this “club” circuit but Overall I actually thought it produced some good racing. Of course I’m not someone who has to ride it, so I don’t want to push my opinion too strongly, especially when people like Cairoli and Desalle aren’t saying the nicest things about it. However with a bit of tweaking and some more work done to it, this should be a cool venue for the Nations.