USA Insider No.181: A Feel-Good Loss?

Transmoto’s weekly web-exclusive column, the USA Insider, penned by Jason Weigandt, presented by Ipone.

Something funny happened on the way to Team USA losing the Motocross of Nations for the fourth year in a row. We got over it! The previous three losses came with deep anger and despair, something I measured quite scientifically via social media and the comments section on the RacerX website. Those last three years, people were mad. Angry. They wanted answers! WHY COULDN’T WE WIN THIS RACE ANYMORE?

Well, “we” still didn’t win. But this was the first-ever feel-good loss. Look, everyone knew we didn’t have the strongest team ever. As I mentioned previously here, the strongest team would have been a healthy and motivated Ryan Dungey and Ryan Villopoto on 450s, and Eli Tomac on a 250. Villopoto, though, instead of winning the MXGP World Championship this year, retired, and Tomac got hurt. Dungey decided to stay home. Oh, Dungey. He’s so pivotal in this. From 2009-2011, he rode well at this event. But he was way below par from 2012-2014. He just wasn’t Ryan Dungey, and it became way too easy for GP fans to gloat that America’s best just struggled to a lowly seventh. That gloating only made the American fans madder. What the heck happened with Dungey?

Maybe he’ll race it next year and we’ll see if the new Dungey, the much-improved guy who cleaned up indoors and out this year, can also fix his des Nations troubles. His replacement was Cooper Webb, who is a 250 rider. Webb didn’t win, but he did what Dungey didn’t do, which was overachieve. For a moment, he even closed in on unbeatable MXGP champion, Romain Febvre, and tried to pass him. Webb rode as well as you could possibly expect him to ride. Dungey might have done better if he was there, but even if he won, he’d merely be doing what was expected. Webb did better than expected, even in a loss.

Justin Barcia’s moto win and third-moto charge was inspiring. In the end, this Team USA did as good as they could possibly do, but this Team France was a buzz saw. Plus, that French crowd was so darned crazy it was cool to see them rewarded, and everyone here likes Marvin Musquin. American fans would have been happier to win, sure, but these guys gave it their all and lost narrowly to the better team. Hard to complain about that.