~ MotOCROSS .•
By Davey Coombs
ROGGENBURG,SWITZERLAND, SEPT. 11
~ n a dreary da y along the border
between Switzerland and
Fra nce, the longest winning
streak in the history of international motocross racing pla yed
itself ou t. Great Britain won the 1994
Motocro ss d es Nations on the highspeed, rock-strewn hills of the Roggenb u r g m o tocross circu it. Th e m uc h
maligned British trio of Kurt Nicoll, Rob
Herring and Paul Malin did the unthinkable in bringing down the mighty American team which enjoyed 13 straight years
O
IOI
14
48th Annual Motocross des Nations
of winning this event. It was an up set of
epic prop ortions and on e of th e most
biza rre day s that motocross racing has
seen in quite some time.
Alwa ys under the gun at the MXdN,
the American contingent of Mike LaRocco, Mike Kiedrowski and Jeff Emig put in
a bra ve performance to earn runner-up
hon ors on a track that was terrifyin g in
both speed and rock distribu tion. LaRocco earned top American honors via a 2-1
sco re for the overall w in in the SOOcc
class; Kiedrowski was fifth in the 250cc
tally with his 4-5 scores; Emig was second best in th e 12Scc class wi th a 2-2
tally. The Americans scored 11 points to
Great Britain's nine. The French team finished third with a total of 13 poin ts, followed by Belgium with 18 and Germany
with 28.
" It's been pretty tough her e every
year, but we just always seemed to pu t it
together," said Emig. "I gu ess this was
the year that we didn 't come together. "
"It's been com in g for a long time,"
said Kiedrowski, who ha d been on two
winning teams before this year. "A lot of
times we won by luck, when things went
right for us and other guys screwed up.
Afte r we bare ly won last yea r 1 knew
there would come a day when we would
lose. This is it."
Class winner s includ ed LaRocco in
the big-bore division, Belgium's Mamicq
Bervoe ts in the 250cc category and the
sensational Malin in the 125cc class. But
laRocco found no joy in his fine individual performances.
"I did wh at 1 could , but winning my
class doesn't matter much right now, "
said laRocco. "Losing as a team sucks.
I'm not happy about it, but we did what
we all could ."
The British victory, the nation' s first
since 1967, was shocking to see, yet no
more so than the startling crash of South
African Gr eg Albe rty n in th e second
mo to. The three-time World Champion
