VOL. 53 ISSUE 38 SEPTEMBER 27, 2016 P55
13-point total actually meant that
after the first races they were
in second place in the Nations
standings, behind the strong
Belgian pairing of Kevin Strijbos
and Jeremy van Horebeek. Strij-
bos has won a moto at this track
before in the MXGPs while van
Horebeek was really determined
to win the MX2 class, after mak-
ing the decision to stick on the
smaller bike despite Clement
Desalle's injury. They finished
third and fifth, respectively, but
their real test would be when
rookie and usual 250 rider Brent
van Doninck took to the track
in the Open class. France was
two points behind USA as MXoN
rookie and controversial replace-
ment Benoit Paturel finished
14th. Many people thought when
Dylan Ferrandis got injured, that
Marvin Musquin was the obvious
choice but the French Federa-
tion (partly concerned with travel
costs) decided Paturel would be
the better pick.
Despite their good position
after race one, there was still
some nervousness around
team USA, as no one was quite
sure how well Anderson would
deal with his broken foot. That
nervousness lasted about five
seconds as the Husqvarna rider
took the holeshot and proceed-
ed to gap the field, while the
rest of the riders tried to sort
themselves out. Jeffrey Herlings,
starting his new 450 career,
took a couple of laps to make
his way through into second
place and then set about hunting
challenge, and they proved that
fact over the course of the three
motos on Sunday.
In race one, it was Webb
and Martin lining up with the
team tactic of Webb having the
inside gate pick, presumably to
give him the biggest chance of
winning the race. To his left all
the other nations had allowed
their MX2 guys to line up inside,
with the exception of Italy who
wanted to give Antonio Cairoli
the best chance to give this mas-
sive Maggiora crowd something
to cheer about (not that they
needed much encouragement).
It proved a good tactic as
Cairoli ripped out the gate, only
beaten to the holeshot by his
KTM teammate Glenn Colden-
hoff. The Dutchman led for three
laps before Cairoli swept around
him, sending the reported
80,000 fans into ecstasy. Unfor-
tunately their joy was short lived
because behind them Febvre
was coming, and he was coming
fast. Febvre made short work
of both the KTM riders with the
sort of ride that made him world
champ in 2015. Meanwhile,
the American pair was gradu-
ally making their way through
the field as well after two pretty
average starts. Webb was 10th
after lap one, while Martin was
20th but slowly but surely they
worked their way up the field,
putting in the rides that most
people expected from them on
Saturday. By the end of the race,
Webb got all the way to fourth,
with Martin scoring a ninth. The
Italy rounding out the top five
going into Sunday.
With news of Anderson's
injury spreading, combined with
the extremely ordinary perfor-
mances in Saturday's races
meant that many people were
writing them off before the gates
had even been dropped. But as
mentioned before, these aren't
the type of riders to shirk a
