VOL. 55 ISSUE 40 OCTOBER 9, 2018 P35
the championship] last year and
we couldn't finish the job. I'm not
looking for a repeat of that. This
time, we need to close the deal."
The championship chase,
which was already a competi-
tive multi-rider battle entering
the event, became even more
crazy after Matt Smith, Hector
Arana Jr., and Hines, ranked
first, fourth and fifth entering the
race, each lost in the first round.
That opened the door for Tonglet
and Krawiec to make up ground,
especially on leader Smith.
After the 13th of 16 rounds,
Tonglet is the leader with
Krawiec is just 47 points back,
which is approximately two
elimination rounds. Smith is also
in the mix, just one point in back
of Krawiec.
Savoie also remains a cham-
pionship contender following his
runner-up finish in Dallas. The
2016 NHRA champ came from
the number seven qualifying spot
to score wins against Joey Glad-
stone, Karen Stoffer and Steve
Johnson. Savoie's final-round
showing came with a heavy price
tag, and a lot of extra effort after
his crew was forced to use three
different engines during Sun-
day's final eliminations.
"My guys did an awesome
job," Savoie said. "They worked
on the bike between every round
and they never stopped work-
ing. We had three engines in the
bike because we just couldn't
find one that worked the way we
wanted it to. We've been strug-
gling a bit with our tune-up lately
but I have a lot of faith in Tim
[Kulungian, crew chief] that he's
going to get it figured out. He
put both of our bikes in the final
round and that says a lot for him
and the rest of our team."
With three races left, the
series will head directly to Char-
lotte for next weekend's round
at zMax Dragway near Concord.
The last time the NHRA series
raced there, last April for the
Four-Wide Nationals, Savoie
rode to a victory.
Kevin McKenna
1. LE Tonglet (Suz)
2. Jerry Savoie (Suz)
ERNEE TO HOST 2020 MOTOCROSS
OF NATIONS
T
he Motocross of Nations will return to
France and the Ernee Moto-Club in 2020.
The announcement was made official at
RedBud during this year's MXoN by Youth-
stream Vice President Mr. David Luongo,
Managing Director of the FFM Mr. Sébastien
Poirier and President of the Ernée Moto-Club
Mr. Philippe Lecomte.
Luongo said, "The French following is one of
the biggest in the world in the field of moto-
cross and the French fans have always been in-
credible. It was the obvious choice, especially
with the partnership we have with the French
Motorcycling Federation and French clubs, to
bring the Motocross of Nations back to France. We chose Ernée after
the two editions (2005 and 2015) because both of them were an incred-
ible success, we all have images and memories from the Motocross of
Nations in Ernée and we are very proud to be coming back." CN
(L-R) FIM's Sebastien Poirier,
Youthstream's David Luongo
and Ernee Moto-Club President
Philippe Lecomte announced
that the 2020 MXoN will take
place in Ernee, France.
