The racing season is ramping right up at the moment and this weekend is the busiest we’ve witnessed all year so far. With AMA Supercross continuing, MXGP firing up, plus Enduro-X, SuperEnduro and US Enduro all on, there’s plenty to follow!

There’s plenty to be excited about in terms of the Cairoli vs Villopoto battle in MXGP as Simon Makker details below (and not to forget the Aussies, Todd Waters, Dean Ferris and Meg Rutledge) and no doubt all of us will be watching on closely.

Overnight it looks like it’s Cairoli who has the upper-hand at Losail, but as we’ve seen so many times before, you can’t read too far into the qualifying heats because once the motos arrive, things can change very quickly.

Still, I would have thought RV would be higher up the order both in the timed practices and in the qualifying heat, but we will see as time tells the full story. And as we’ve said before, there are many guys aside from Tony and RV who are there to win.

The return of Chad Reed on top of the podium last weekend at Atlanta 1 was a stunning result and one that, as always, proves you can never, ever write off the Aussie veteran.

Source: TwoTwo Motorsports.

It’s fitting then that TwoTwo has unveiled a 1993-inspired livery for retro weekend at the Georgia Dome on Saturday night and you can bet Chad will be doing all he can to replicate his success in the very same stadium one week ago.

Closer to home, round two of the Enduro-X Nationals is going down today and it’s sure to be a cracking event at Sydney Dragway. Can the Aussies stop Husqvarna’s American import Mike Brown? Head out there to see it all happen!

Before I hand it over to Makker here in a moment for a more extensive MXGP preview and more, it was neat to see Matt Moss back on the bike today after injuring his shoulder while racing in America earlier in the year.

Fresh back from his honeymoon in Hawaii, Moss will have exactly one month to prepare for Horsham’s MX Nationals opener, which is probably more time than we first expected upon hearing about his injury. Things are about to get interesting!

That’s it from me for now, but here’s Makker to wrap things up…

For about half the world’s moto-loving population, the 2015 motocross season gets properly under way this weekend with the World Motocross Championship firing up at Qatar.

It’s crazy to think that it’s been almost six months since we last saw the MXGP racers in action and since then, a lot of water has gone under the bridge and there have been some significant changes to teams and riders.

The biggest talking point, of course, is the inclusion of Monster Energy Kawasaki’s Ryan Villopoto, who’s taken the plunge into the unknown for his final year in an illustrious career.

For RV2, it could just be the change that he needs as he goes about preparing for retirement. It’s no secret that he was jaded of the US scene and he’ll be the first to say that his love for racing had diminished significantly over the past few years.

This year, though, he’s looking relaxed and again has a ready smile on his face. A relaxed, happy Villopoto is an extremely fast and dangerous one, and the alarm bells are going to be ringing hard for title hopefuls.

As for eight-time world champion Antonio Carioli, well, you can guarantee he’ll be relishing the opportunity to race a seven-time American champion for a full season.

It’s always tough to get a gauge of who’s the fastest rider in the world at the one-off annual Motocross Of Nations, and for the first time in decades, we the media, the industry and race fans across the globe have the opportunity to genuinely see who’s the greatest, fastest racer in the world.

The Qatar round at Losail is a unique event in its own right. Not only is it the only round of the championship in the Middle East, the circuit is held under lights and this year will feature an all-new CCTV system comprising 16 cameras so that race officials can keep tabs of all racing incidents.

Source: Kawasaki Racing.

All 18 rounds of the championship will be aired on Eurosport and Fox Sports, with Qatar being shown live on Eurosport from 6.30am tomorrow morning. Forfeiting your weekend sleep-in will be worth the effort!

On a different tack now, but have you seen the video that French FMXer Tom Pages released yesterday of his all-new trick that he’ll be bringing into this year’s Red Bull X-Fighters? His new Ally-Oop Flair out of the quarter-pipe defies all logic and needs to be watched several times using the ‘pause’ and ‘play’ buttons to make any sense of it.

Pages isn’t the only one working hard on new tricks for this year. I’ve heard 2012 champion Levi Sherwood is working on a couple of never-before-seen tricks in anticipation of the season opener at Mexico.

Australia’s defending champion Josh Sheehan is missing the opening round due to Nitro Circus Live commitments in Japan, but with all riders able to drop their worst result of the season, Mexico will be his dud round.

It’ll put serious pressure on him for the remainder of the year, but the easy-going Sheeny is more than able to roll with the punches and keep fighting right until the final round.

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