YOUTHSTREAM:

An eventful Red Bull FIM Motocross of Nations got underway today, with Team USA winning and home Team Italy being hit by bad luck.

Debutants Ryan Dungey and Jake Weimer, together with MXoN veteran Tedesco, handed the USA their 20th Chamberlain Trophy as the Nation remains the most successful at this event. France was second on the podium courtesy of Frossard, Musquin and Paulin, with the latter crashing in the final heat and dropping the squad off the first step of the podium.
Belgium completed the podium with Desalle, Roelants and Ramon.

Germany and Great Britain rounded off the top five ahead of unlucky Italy.

With an entry list of 37 National Teams and a crowd of 90000 weekend spectators this Red Bull FIM Motocross of Nations unveiled to be the best of all times at the end of a fantastic weekend of racing and general entertainment offered to the many passionate fans.

Giuseppe Luongo, the President of Youthstream, said: “This has been a fantastic success, it is a dream come true. We wanted to run the Nations on a permanent facility with a direct involvement of Youthstream, we wanted to show the level we would like this kind of race to be at, we wanted to show we can do a good job and we can exploit the structures we have, and we did all that. Our goal is to gather as many spectators as we can but we have to offer them a great show, services, all every major sport has for their spectators. In the year of the well known economic crisis we managed to increase the number of spectators and of nations attending the event. This is the Nations of the records and it looks a bit strange when it comes in the year of the crisis. Though this happened because we continued to believe and invest in our sport instead of cutting all budgets, we actually took the opposite direction. We believe this is one of the times when you have to work even hard er and invest even more. If you see all the greatest things in the world, they have been done in the most difficult moments. When life is hard there is just one single action to take: just look forward and keep going. Motocross is an exceptional sport and deserves even better than this, we will make that happen too.”

Dr. Wolfgang Srb, the FIM/CMS President, continued: “It is simply the biggest and best Nations ever. We have reached a new dimension and touched new horizons and this is something I am stunned about. 37 federations have entered, a huge crowd came on site to watch, this is really the “Olympic Games of Motocross”, this is all so big that I have no words to describe it. The riders did a great job entertaining the crowd with great racing, there was such a positive atmosphere around the whole venue as everyone celebrated the maximum expression of Motocross. What a big success, thanks a lot to Youthstream and Giuseppe Luongo, they did an outstanding job and I am really happy they are a long time contractual partner of the FIM. They deserve a lot of credit. Motocross has remained an affordable sport despite its high development in the last years, young riders and even entire families continue getting involved into it.  Racing has remained a perfect harmony in between man and bike.”

Vito Ippolito, the FIM President, ended: “The races we just watched were part of a really well organized event under all points of view, including show, sport and crowd. It was so spectacular that it gave a lot of dignity to our sport and the FIM is very much satisfied about it.”

RACE 1 (MX1 & MX2)
Right from the start to the heat holeshotter Cairoli and runner up Reed showed the moto was going to be theirs through an opening lap dogfight. Eventually Cairoli came out on top with Reed following. The Italian opened up a gap which the Australian was not able to close, settling for an eventual second.

Dungey worked his way up from the bottom of the top five until the third position with Desalle following in fourth. The latter was handed the position by Barragan, who made a mistake after a solid start and dropped down to 12.

Musquin steered his MX2 bike to fifth being the best placed MX2 rider in the heat ahead of experienced Coppins and Searle, another MX2 rider inside the top ten.

Race 1 top ten: 1. Antonio Cairoli (ITA, Yamaha), 34:38.859; ; 2. Chad Reed (AUS, Suzuki), +0:01.582; 3. Ryan Dungey (USA, Suzuki), +0:28.687; 4. Clement Desalle (BEL, Honda), +0:44.470; 5. Marvin Musquin (FRA, KTM), +0:56.468; 6. Joshua Coppins (NZL, Yamaha), +0:58.590; 7. Tommy Searle (GBR, KTM), +0:59.120; 8. Jake Weimer (USA, Kawasaki), +1:02.003; 9. Gareth Swanepoel (RSA, Kawasaki), +1:11.705; 10. Ken Roczen (GER, Suzuki), +1:22.943;

RACE 2 (OPEN & MX2)
Paulin started well onboard the Open class bike and did dominate the second heat to place France ahead of the rest. Paulin headed the pack for the whole moto while Tedesco remained a steady second until the last lap, when a hard charging Philippaerts stormed to his tail and moved past at just four corners from the chequered flag.

The Italian’s manoeuvre, which set the crowd on fire, was not matched by team mate Guarneri. Australian Byrne crashed into him at lap two, with both remaining out.

Tanel Leok took fourth ahead of Musquin, who could do no better than fifth onboard the MX2 bike. MX2 fellow rider Weimer instead made a mistake and dropped to 25th.

Race 2 top ten: 1. Gautier Paulin (FRA, Kawasaki), 34:57.775; ; 2. David Philippaerts (ITA, Yamaha), +0:03.095; 3. Ivan Tedesco (USA, Honda), +0:03.913; 4. Tanel Leok (EST, Yamaha), +0:37.402; 5. Marvin Musquin (FRA, KTM), +0:40.383; 6. Maximilian Nagl (GER, KTM), +0:45.341; 7. Steve Ramon (BEL, Suzuki), +0:55.500; 8. Ken Roczen (GER, Suzuki), +0:59.850; 9. Brett Metcalfe (AUS, Honda), +1:03.778; 10. Tyla Rattray (RSA, Kawasaki), +1:11.852;

Nations top ten: France, Belgium, USA, Great Britain, Republic of South Africa, Italy, Germany, Australia, Estonia, New Zealand.

RACE 3 (MX1 & OPEN)
The final moto opened with a massive tangle at the start straight, where moto 1 winner and Italy leader Cairoli went down. The MX1 World Champion’s bike broke and he could not rejoin the race.

Barragan led the opening laps with Dungey following in second until he found an open door and snatched the top spot. The American would continue leading until taking victory at lap 17.

Barragan struggled and dropped down to fourth, with both Ramon and Philippaerts entering the top three.

Frossard made up for a difficult first heat courtesy of a fifth place finish but it was French countryman Paulin who could not provide the necessary support to the squad. The Open class rider went down at lap one, landing on some riders’ bikes which had previously crashed.

Race was finished for Paulin and team France dropped down to second behind overall winner Team USA. Despite a tangle damaging Desalle’s bike, Belgium made it to the podium in third. Germany took fourth ahead of Great Britain and Italy.

Dungey (USA) took the individual MX1 victory, Musquin (France) won the MX2 and Philippaerts (Italy) won the Open class. The Ricky Carmichael Award went to Dutch Herlings, who turned 15 on September 12.

Race 3 top ten: 1. Ryan Dungey (USA, Suzuki), 34:50.404; ; 2. Steve Ramon (BEL, Suzuki), +0:11.568; 3. David Philippaerts (ITA, Yamaha), +0:19.125; 4. Jonathan Barragan (ESP, KTM), +0:25.082; 5. Steven Frossard (FRA, Kawasaki), +0:32.480; 6. Joshua Coppins (NZL, Yamaha), +0:47.500; 7. Ivan Tedesco (USA, Honda), +0:52.548; 8. Maximilian Nagl (GER, KTM), +0:54.594; 9. Chad Reed (AUS, Suzuki), +0:57.549; 10. Shaun Simpson (GBR, KTM), +1:13.780;

Nations top ten: USA, France, Belgium, Germany, Great Britain, Italy, Australia, Estonia, Republic of South Africa, Switzerland.

RED BULL FIM MXoN – QUICK FACTS
Circuit length: 1680 mt
Type of ground: hard pack
Temperature: 22° C
Weather conditions: sunny
Crowd attendance during weekend: 90000