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AMA PRO MOTOCROSS 250MX AND SUPERCROSS 250SX WEST CHAMPION AARON PLESSINGER P116 Interview been an unreal year. The Mo- tocross of Nations didn't go as planned, but I'm not mad. I went to represent my country as best I could, so that's what I did. It's all behind us now and we're moving on to the 450 ranks." Seemingly perfectly posi- tioned to provide the backdrop for Aaron Plessinger's season of dreams, he and Team USA teammates Eli Tomac and Justin Barcia showed up at RedBud in Michigan the first weekend in October for the 71st annual running of the Monster Energy Motocross of Nations. As has been extremely well document- ed the world over throughout the past couple of months, it didn't go well for any of them, Team USA finishing out in the Great Lakes wilderness in a less-than- stellar sixth position. Ask Pless- inger what really happened up in Michigan and he'll tell you: "I'm not really too sure. We definitely had some momentum going into the weekend and that crash on Saturday kind of threw me off a little bit. I just think that we were off from racing for a little bit and those guys were still racing over- seas and in the groove and in the zone, so I think that helped them out just a tad. I think they were fast. They were fast as hell. They just had it for us. And the track shaped up to be a sand race and you can see that even if you go back and watch it on TV. It just didn't shape up like a RedBud-kind-of track. It was just all sand and no ruts and it was kind of wild. It was a wild experi- ence, but I had fun with it and hopefully I get to do it next year and we'll get some better sand practice in." Eli Tomac recently said that he would like to go to Assen, Holland next year and defend the American way of motocross life at the 2019 Motocross of Na- tions. And Plessinger? "Yeah, yeah, I would love to go back, too," Plessinger says. "I don't think I would say no. Next year, say if I do get to go, I'm going to take some time and probably try to get overseas a little bit before the race and just ride sand and get used to standing up a lot and hopefully that will bring the competition to an equal match. They grew up in that stuff and they ride it every year. It's hard, but you have to do it one way or the other. "You can say they ride out- "I thought it was a phenomenal year. I mean I couldn't have asked for more." One of Plessinger's best attributes in 2018 was the ability to not let a bad race get to him. He usually bounced back with a victory.