2020 MXDN ?

BELIEVE IT OR NOT! MXGP’S CRACKPOT 2020
MOTOCROSS DES NATIONS

 

You mean we could have brought Broc, Kent, Hurricane, Marty, Too Tall, Barnett, Wardy, Rocket Rex and Bailey with us? Wouldn’t it get a little crowded.”

The Motocross des Nations is under attack, by the men who are suppose to protect it. There is talk, among the rear guard of Grand Prix executives (which means the Italians), to throw away the 73 years of the tradition of the MXDN being a nation-versus-nation showdown — and open it up to all the GP riders—which would lessen the importance of and demean the stature of the World Team Motocross Championship.

It would become nothing but another GP in a schedule that already has 5 too many Grands Prix to begin with (and you know the 5 GPs without us telling you who they are, where they are and why the promoters want to go to those non-moto countries).

The idea is to turn the Motocross des Nations into a points paying GP, open to every GP rider (please don’t called it the Motocross “of” Nations—that was just a marketing ploy to sell sponsorship packages to corporations that knew nothing and cared nothing about motocross history). By allowing everybody to race at the Motocross des Nations the riders who weren’t named to their nation’s teams will be placed in the mix as “wild card” riders (mucking up the mix is more like it). If In Front Racing, formerly Youthstream, makes this change, the MXDN will lose its reason for being. It will just become another GP.

 

Ricky Carmichael at the 2007 Motocross des Nations.

Why do they want to make this change? Because the way the current MXGP schedule is laid out, the previously last race of the year, the Motocross des Nations, is now in the middle of the MXGP season—with 11 GPs scheduled after the MXDN.  Frontstream is worried that most of the Grand Prix contenders will refuse to race for their national teams with so many GPs left on the schedule (where injury at the mid-season MXDN could harm their chances of being number one).

They have already lost Team USA, at least the upper crust of the potential Team USA, to the late starting AMA National series and now they are worried that the European stars will bow out also to focus on the 11 races left in the World Championship points chance.

And since In Front Racing refuses to budge off  the September 27th date—it seems as through they would rather kill the event’s uniqueness than think about re-arranging the schedule—which starts with getting rid of at least  5 meaningless GPs.

If they dropped all of the To be Announced (TBA) dates and the five races that no one wants to go to, the MXDN could be the last race of the season.

REVISED 2020 FIM MOTOCROSS WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP

Mar. 1…Matterley, Great Britain (Held)
Mar. 8…Valkenswaard, Holland (Held)
Aug. 2…Russia, Orlyonok,
Aug. 9…Kegums, Latvia
Aug. 16…Uddevalla, Sweden
Aug. 23…KymiRing, Finland
Sept. 6.…Afyonkarahisar, Turkey
Sept. 13…Shanghai, China
Sept. 13…TBA
Sept. 27…MXDN, Ernee, France
Oct. 4…Trentino, Italy
Oct. 11..Arroyomolinos, Spain
Oct. 18…Agueda, Portgual
Oct. 25…Lommel, Belgium
Nov. 1…Jakarta, Indonesia
Nov. 8…TBA, Indonesia
Nov. 22…Neuquen, Argentina
Nov. 29…TBA
TBA…Loket, Czech Republic
TBA…Teutschenthal, Germany
TBA…Imola, Italy