Steve Cox | October 31, 2018
Cycle News Empire of Dirt
COLUMN
What Happened
The RedBud Motocross of Nations has been over for a few weeks now and we’ve had time to reflect a bit about the events of October 7, and while I don’t expect Team USA’s racers to “get over” what happened that day until they have a chance to avenge the loss (if then), the fans are probably starting to feel a little less salty about what happened by now. To put it simply: Team USA went to RedBud with the reigning 250cc and 450cc National Champions and the second-placed American in the 450cc Nationals and was soundly defeated.
Back in August, I wrote two columns where I attempted to temper American expectations from the race. In the first column “Wide World of MX.”
I detailed the rules that have been changed in order to help the rest of the world defeat Team USA – and with good reason, considering the size of the USA and the size of its motorcycling community, among other things. In the second column “The Tilted Table,” I detailed other reasons why we should temper our expectations, such as the fact that RedBud wouldn’t be prepared the same way, and the track wouldn’t develop the same way, as what the AMA racers were used to. Almost everything I detailed in those two columns came true at RedBud.
But there was more.
There was Eli Tomac’s battery failure during qualifying on Saturday, which was part of the reason why Team USA qualified midpack. There was Aaron Plessinger crashing out of the lead in his qualifying race, then falling a second time. These are the obvious things we saw.
There was no sense of urgency whatsoever. Tomac hung around behind Tommy Searle (on a basically stock KX450F) in the first moto for 11 laps, only getting by when Searle’s bike died. Tommy Searle is a great racer, but under these circumstances, there’s no reason for the current AMA 450cc National champ to hang out around him for 11 laps. And Plessinger was in the same boat. He rode most of his two motos without goggles, and two times—both times without goggles—saw him get the inside on a racer he was trying to pass and then check up and not take the line, seemingly afraid of making contact with the other racer. And then he got a massive dose of wet sand deposited into his eyes.
The one thing that winning teams don’t do is wait around behind other racers. They pass people often before they get their first opportunity.
It really struck me that Team USA’s racers looked afraid to fail. Plessinger seemed to be afraid that if he forced the pass, he might crash. Same with Tomac.
Justin Barcia looked aggressive all weekend, but got a flat rear tire in the final moto. Most guys run bib mousses in their rear tires, but apparently Barcia hasn’t been doing that this year, and the flat came at the exact wrong time.
And if that’s not enough, in the final moto of the day on Sunday, nobody on Team USA (or any other team) noticed that there was an open gate left on the inside of the starting gate. The thing is, the FIM sets up the start lines at these events so that the inside gate is usually the best gate with the shortest run to the first turn, and they get worse as you move out toward the outside. This allowed The Netherlands’ Jeffrey Herlings and Glenn Coldenhoff lined up side-by-side on the inside of the gate and ended up going 1-2 in the moto. Nobody noticed the gate!
As I detailed in one of the aforementioned August columns, it’s the toughest gig in motocross to race for Team USA no matter where the race is being held. Team USA is expected to win by default. That means winning is expected, and if Team USA wins, it’s not that big of a deal. But if Team USA loses, it’s a really big deal. This means the risk outweighs the reward, significantly. And when the race is held on U.S. soil (where Team USA had never lost before), this is doubly true.
I spent quite a while after the event thinking that Team USA was overconfident coming into the race. This struck me during their introduction on Friday before the event, as they draped themselves in the flag (which is a personal pet peeve of mine; guys, please don’t wear the flag like clothing, getting your sweat and mud on it, just put it on a pole!) and seemed to be celebrating before the first gate dropped.
I still think this was part of went wrong for Team USA at RedBud, but ultimately I think it was actually the pressure that did Team USA in. It was the pressure of not just racing for Team USA, but doing it at RedBud, with the best riders the USA had to offer. I think it was the fear of failure that ultimately cost Team USA a chance at winning the 2018 Motocross of Nations.
Team USA expected to win the RedBud Motocross of Nations, and their actions on the track indicated that they were trying to prevent mistakes rather than win the races.
I have no doubt everybody involved is carrying a chip on their shoulder after that event, and they should. Luckily, provided they’re healthy, they’ll have another shot at it in a year.
This time, in The Netherlands.CN
