MXGP Insider No.33: MXoN Glory

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

Wow. What a way to finish the MXGP calendar for the year! Going into the event I was pretty excited and I have to say that what transpired over the weekend at the 2015 Motocross of Nations didn’t let me down. Well, obviously I was disappointed when Max Anstie was landed on (and I witnessed the whole horrific incident first-hand) as this meant Team Great Britain no longer had a chance at winning or even getting on the podium. Reports suggest he has damaged a vertebrae and broken his shoulder, which quite frankly he should be thankful for as that could have easily been a life threatening crash. After finding out he is relatively “okay”, the gutting thing looking at the results is that all “we” needed was one 22nd position from Max and GB would have had their first podium in years.

Unfortunately, Max wasn’t the only name missing from the event, in what was an extremely thin looking field. Only two riders from the top 17 guys in the MX2 World Championship actually raced a 250 over the weekend (Jeremy Seewer and Julien Lieber), with Tim Gajser not Qualifying at all, Pauls Jonass also crashing out and just a general injury hit class this year. Not that Gajser will care too much as I’ve since seen photos of his home-coming party in Slovenia and it looks like the newly crowned World champ had quite the shindig.

Of course the best party was in Ernée and that lasted from Thursday to Monday morning. I was walking around the campsite on Saturday night and it was like scenes from a war film as car engines, couches, caravans and more were all just burnt out wreckages.

The on-track action also produced some fireworks with some great battles between Musquin/Barcia and Febvre/Webb. Overall the French team just about edged out the Americans in what was one of the closest duels for a title ever seen. Hanging around the American team in the build-up and they were all confident they could get the job done, and despite it not working out quite their way, they all pretty much did as well as they could have. The fact that I actually saw an American rider “attending” the Monster Energy afterparty confirmed the fact to me that they were happy with their performance and deserved to let their hair down.

The French team also deserved to let their hair down after what has been a long, tough year for all three. Of course, Romain Febvre thoroughly enjoyed his 2015, but no doubt he’s looking forward to a little break even if he is scheduled to race Bercy next month. Marvin Musquin also deserves some sort of time off after a gruelling 2015, but he’s meant to be lining up for Red Bull Straight Rhythm. Lastly, Gautier Paulin is finally getting his knee fixed with surgery, forcing him to miss the Monster Cup and Bercy, both of which he was meant to be racing.

And if all these “off-season” events weren’t enough, Youthstream announced this week that next year will see them promote the inaugural Riders and Manufacturers Cup (catchy name) at the Veltins Arena in Germany, which will be completely like Arenacross/Supercross with one big difference … they can’t call it either of those things due to FELD holding all those rights.