VOL. 53 ISSUE 35 SEPTEMBER 17, 2016 P83
across his face and he dropped
to his knees to celebrate becom-
ing the youngest ever MXGP
Champion, and Honda's first big-
bike title winner since Marcus
Hansson in 1994.
While the racing at the front
wasn't the closest, a bit further
down the field it was a battle
royale as Jeremy van Horebeek,
Clement Desalle, Glenn Cold-
enhoff, Evgeny Bobryshev and
Romain Febvre raged war at dif-
ferent points in the motos. In the
end, the final podium spot went
to van Horebeek who hasn't
seen the box since Thailand
and had to fight tooth and nail to
make sure it happened here.
Unfortunately not everything
went to plan for Americans at the
event with Adam Cianciarulo suf-
fering another shoulder injury on
the first lap of the first MX2 race.
tocross of Nations team in order
to complete in this event.
For Gajser, his target was to
beat Antonio Cairoli by 10 points
in the first moto so he could
become the first ever back-to-
back MX2 and MXGP Champion
(there has been, however, back-
to-back 125-250cc MX Cham-
pions). It has been some rise to
fame for a youngster who grew
up in a very rural area of Slove-
nia, and you can tell that some-
times it gets a bit too much for
him to take in. When he crossed
the line for fourth place in moto,
he must have fully expected it
wouldn't have been enough to
clinch the title. However, Cairoli
was struggling and eventually
ended up 13th giving Gajser
the 10-point gap he needed. As
the message was relayed to the
Slovenian, the realization swept
rookie Austin Forkner did what
he came to Charlotte to do by
beating Herlings in the second
moto. It certainly wasn't easy as
the Dutchman made a last-lap at-
tempt, which almost succeeded,
but Forkner held him off for 3-2
scores. It was another feather
in the cap in for this likeable
kid from Missouri in what has
already been a fantastic rookie
year. He now heads to Glen
Helen to try to stop Herlings
from emulating Webb and finish-
ing with a final GP win, which
would take his tally to 61, just
nine shy of Antonio Cairoli and
well on his way to Stefan Everts'
record of 101.
In the MXGP class, it was very
much the Eli Tomac show, as
he went about his business in a
manner that gave the rest of the
field no chance of success. He
won the first moto by 22 sec-
onds before coming through the
pack and winning the second
moto by five seconds over Tim
Gajser, who could have made
things interesting had he not
tipped over while leading. While
it wasn't quite the Tomac from
the first five motos of 2015, it
was very close and reminded
people just how good he can
be, when he's on it. Obviously
there was no Ken Roczen to
compare to, but even the Ger-
man would have had a challenge
matching the lap times laid down
by Tomac who chose to forsake
his position on the American Mo-
Slovenian Tim Gajser clinched the
2016 MXGP Championship.
