2019 Motocross of Nations pre-race report - Assen, Netherlands
By Team TMX on 27th Sep 19
This weekend sees the 73rd running of the Motocross of Nations, which will be held at Assen in the Netherlands.
No fewer than 34 teams from around the world will converge on the road-race facility bringing tens of thousands of fans with them for what promises to be the years biggest motocross event.
After last years display of dominance, the home team have to be considered favourites to win. Okay, they didnt actually win the team event in RedBud last time but had Calvin Vlaanderen not absolutely ruined his eyes in race one theyd have surely taken the overall such was the brilliance of Glenn Coldenhoff and Jeffrey Herlings.
Adam Sterry takes the
MX2 ride
Herlings is just about up to speed after multiple injuries this season and Coldenhoff has been red hot in the latter part of the season.
If those two bring that form to Assen then its going to take something very special from one of the other nations to stop them taking the win in front of King Willem-Alexander.
France enter the event riding the crest of a five-year win streak but unless something very strange happens that winning run is about to come crashing down as injury woes and sponsor rows mean theyre bringing something of a D-team to this years battle.
Gautier Paulin has been a constant during that period of domination and hell be joined by Maxime Renaux and Jordi Tixier who was part of Frances most recent winning team.
Nathan Watson fills the MXGP spot
Team GB has had a great run recently finishing third at Matterley in 2017 and repeating the feat at RedBud last year.
In a similar situation to Team France, two of our boys are far from being first pick but theyre all highly capable of performing on the day and wed put good money on them standing on the podium again at the end.
Adam Sterry takes the MX2 ride, Nathan Watson (yep, the kiddie who won last weekends WESS round at Hawkstone Park) fills the MXGP spot and Team GB kingpin Shaun Simpson the open berth. Go get em lads!
The Australians bring Dean Ferris, Kyle Webster and Regan Duffy to Assen and with Webster and Duffy being relatively unknown in Europe theyre flying under the radar slightly.
Its worth pointing out that Duffy recently became the youngest ever winner of the Manjimup 15,000 and Webster is a back-to-back MX2 champion Down Under.
Neither of the AMA Outdoor champs (thats Eli Tomac and Adam Cianciarulo) are representing Team USA after their employer Monster Energy Kawasaki flat-out refused to support them!
Team France took the win last year at RedBud
Fortunately, Rockstar Husqvarna are more open-minded and are willingly supporting their 450 stars Jason Anderson and Zach Osborne who both have previous MXoN experience. Theyll be joined by Star Racing Yamahas Justin Cooper who ended up third in the US 250 title chase.
Looking further down the list and Team Belgium (Jeremy van Horebeek, Jago Geerts and Kevin Strijbos) certainly have experience on their side although bizarrely Strijbos will run out of the Wilvo awning on Arnaud Tonus vacated bike rather than run his usual JWR mount.
The Swiss side are certainly going to miss Tonus with their team now being made up of MXGP runner-up Jeremy Seewer, Valentin Guillod and Cyril Scheiwiller. Yep, weve not heard of him either!
Team Ireland have a super-strong line-up in the shape of Jason Meara, Martin Barr and Stuart Edmonds wholl be going all out to keep the green, white and gold out of the B-Final.
The Swedes are one of the sleepers with a very strong team that might take a few by surprise.
Filip Bengtsson is their MXGP ace, REVO Husqvarnas Alvin Ostlund fills the MX2 birth with Anton Gole taking care of Open class honours.
Although the MXoN is a team event there are a few individuals who could make their presence felt and upset the applecart.
Who are we on about? The current world champions of course as both MXGP winner Tim Gajser and MX2 ace Jorge Prado will be looking to run up front although dont necessarily have the back-up required to be seen on the podium.
Assen will be the first time we see Prado on a 450 and hell surely be gunning for race wins.
Other top stars without meaningful team back-up will be Latvias Pauls Jonass, Lithuanias Arminas Jasikonis and Denmarks Thomas Kjer Olsen.
They should be somewhere up front although they may well be hindered by so-so gate pick if they even make it to Sundays races. Oh, the drama...
How the MXoN works
Each nations team is made up of three riders. Of those three, one is armed with an MXGP-class bike, another an MX2 machine (although its worth noting that the normal MX2 age rule doesnt apply) and the third can run any machine they want as its an Open category. The majority do use 450s though.
The event kicks off with a ballot that decides the order of gate pick for Saturdays qualifying motos. This is done by country so if Team GB was given pick one that would apply to all three individual riders.
Shaun Simpson will lead Team GB this weekend in the Open class
The qualifying motos run in this order MXGP, MX2 and then Open and are all 20 minutes plus two laps each. An Olympic-style scoring system is used with the winner
gaining one point, second-place two, third three and so on.
At the end of all three motos, a teams top two scores count towards the total and the lowest-scoring 19 nations all qualify for Sundays all-important MXoN motos with the rest going to the B-Final.
The B-Final runs on Sunday morning with the winning team (top two scores count) going through to the MXoN motos everyone else goes home. See ya!
Race one for the Peter Chamberlain Trophy is for MXGP and MX2 riders. Gate pick is based on the teams qualifying result with the winners taking pick one and pick 21, runners-up two and 22 etc. Its up to the team to decide which one of their riders get their first pick.
Like the qualifiers that Olympic scoring is used once more so whatever place a rider finishes, the team gets that score. So say if Rider A won and Rider B finished 36th, that team would carry 37 points from race one.
Race Two is MX2/Open riders and Race Three Open/MXGP. In theory, a team should amass six scores with their best five counting towards the overall score.
If a team doesnt have five scores then it drops behind all those that do in the overall ranking.
MXoN race schedule
Saturday
10am MXGP Free Practice
10.50am MX2 Free practice
11.40am OPEN Free Practice
2.30pm MXGP Qualifying Heat
3.30pm MX2 Qualifying Heat
4.30pm OPEN Qualifying Heat
Sunday
8.35am B-Final Warm-up
10am Group One Warm-up
10.20am Group Two Warm-up
11am B-Final
1.10pm MXoN Race One (MXGP/MX2)
2.40pm MXoN Race Two (MX2/OPEN)
4.08pm MXoN Race Three (MXGP/Open)
All times local to Assen (BST +1 hour)
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