The Motocross des Nations (MXdN) are over and with it the bragging rights for best motocross country in the world shifts from Belgium to France.

The track in Kegums was sandy with a hard base and many riders commented on how rough it got. Also for the MX2 and Open riders there was only a 40-minute break between motos and more than a few riders were struggling a bit with this short intermission.

There’s no doubt that France deserved to win. Its riders (Gauthier Paulin, Stephane Frossard and Dylan Ferrandis) didn’t have any problems; Paulin was balls-out fast and the best rider all weekend long. Their starts were good and they were top to the bottom the best country.

Their point total, dropping their worst score, was a 17 and compared to the last three years that’s an impressive number. Although America’s score of 9 at Budds Creek in 2007 might never be topped!

Team USA suffered some bad luck (or suffered from some serious rider error if bad luck isn’t your type of thing) when it’s MX2 rider, Jeremy Martin, cartwheeled bad in Saturday’s qualifying race. Broken toes and a broken foot limited what Martin could do from there and his fourth overall in MX2 was, all things considered, not too shabby.

The team’s other riders had one good moto and one bad moto. Eli Tomac was amazing in the third moto coming from dead last in the first turn to a third. His lap times were almost two seconds faster than the winner and he was on another level. This was also with a mid-race stall!

Source: Supplied.

Ryan Dungey crashed early in this same moto and although his second in the first moto was great, his lackluster ride after getting up from the crash was tied with Martin for the teams worst finish. At one point Tomac was behind Dungey in this moto and went forward while Dungey did not.

So Team USA has now lost this race for the third year in a row and I think they need to take a look at everything involved with this race. Who’s doing the selecting, what the pit set-up is, when the team gets in and everything top to bottom.

Ask a 450MX rider to ride the 250F if need be – although the broken bones weren’t Jeremy’s fault – the team’s MX2 rider (aside from Tomac last year) hasn’t pulled their weight in this event for a while. The other countries have caught up to America and it’s no longer a walk in the park.

Can someone please let me know what Team Australia was thinking for this event? Of course Chad Reed brought his race bike from America (with Ohlins suspension on it by the way!) and all of his crew. That part was fine even though Reed’s MXdN was not fine due to crashes in every single moto he raced.

What I’m puzzled about was his teammates Matt Moss and Luke Clout showing up with just their handlebars to slap on some bikes they borrowed. Now granted these weren’t just any bikes they got, they were full works/factory-support bikes but they weren’t set up for Moss or Clout. Perhaps production bikes would have bee better.

Showing up at the Motocross des Nations with just handlebars and trying to wing it with suspension set up for someone else is just an amazing waste of time in my opinion. A real head shaker and not shocking that Moss and Clout struggled at the race.

If you’re going to go to the effort that everyone goes to from faraway countries to get to this race I’m not sure why the decision was made to handicap the riders. Clement Desalle’s complete bike is built just for him, it’s a real works bike, and just showing up with your bars is a just asking for problems.

Image: Simon Cudby.

So the news became official this week with defending Supercross champion Ryan Villopoto heading to Europe to contest the World Motocross Championships. The nine-time SX and MX champion is doing something that has never been done before as in, a current American titleholder heading to Europe to race the GPs. This is a ‘wow’ moment in world motocross.

And when I first heard rumour of this a while back, I dismissed it. There was no way it was going to happen. It’s not possible! But that’s exactly what was happening behind the scenes and this makes this upcoming GP season some must-see TV.

Villopoto is in the last year of a three-year deal to race and this was a factor in why he’s choosing to go this route. Villopoto’s knee surgery that was needed after supercross was bad, there was a lot of damage to the knee and he’s only being cleared to ride at the end of November. So supercross was out.

With all this going on Villopoto was getting tired of the grind of American supercross and motocross. It’s 29 races in 35 weekends with lots of travel. With more money in the bank then he knows what to do with, Villopoto started to get a wandering eye about getting out of the spotlight and away from all these surgeries.

But there was this matter of the last year of his deal. Villopoto simply didn’t want to race anymore in America and figured that this new challenge would be exactly what could motivate him. His new teammate over on the KRT team is longtime friend Tyla Rattray and everything will be geared to help Ryan out to try and enjoy this last year of racing. The 17 races spread out from March to end of September was appealing as was the laid back life of a GP racer.

This could be exactly what he needs to get the juices flowing again and try to be the first American world champion since Bobby Moore in 1994. Win or lose, Villopoto will walk away at the end of 2015 having accomplished the either the ultimate bookend to his amazing career or at the very least, provide American motocross fans with some lasting memories.

I can’t wait. And I bet neither can eight-time world champion Antonio Cairoli and the rest of the GP racers.