P108
BY STEVE BAUER
CN
III FRIENDLY FIRE
I
n case you may have been on
another planet the past couple
of weeks, we (America) got
beat (again!) at the Motocross of
Nations, but it was not for lack of
effort on our team's part.
The U.S. team of Justin Bar-
cia, Jeremy Martin and Cooper
Webb held nothing back and
were simply outridden by an
all-star French team of Gautier
Paulin, Marvin Musquin and
Romain Febvre, racing on their
home soil in Ernee, France. It
should not have been a surprise
to anyone, considering that
Febvre and Paulin finished 1-2
in the MX1 World Championship
this year, on the same bikes they
rode at the MXoN. Factor in that
Musquin was looking for some
payback after his gut-wrenching
loss to Martin for the AMA 250
Motocross title here in the USA,
and you get what I mean. Oh, I
almost forgot to mention that the
French were also the defending
Motocross of Nations cham-
pions and that the place was
packed to capacity with the most
enthusiastic (aka: batshit crazy)
fans on the planet.
An intimidating team, to be
sure, but I think that U.S. Team
Manager Roger DeCoster
picked the three least likely to be
intimidated riders possible. They
rode their asses off, as Barcia
won the MX1 class overall and
Martin and Webb got second
overall in the MX2 and Open
classes, respectively. Great
riding, but Musquin and Febvre
won the two classes that our
guys didn't and Paulin's seventh
overall in MX1 was just good
enough for a French victory. If
you are wondering how our 1-2-2
KUDOS AND RUMORS
