Crawfordsville, Indiana (USA) – The second part of the Friday at the Monster Energy FIM Motocross of Nations at Ironman Raceway in Crawfordsville, Indiana was full of excitement.
Firstly in the Teams’ Press Conference, it was Australia up first as defending Champions, and the ever-upbeat Jett Lawrence was looking forward to the contest, while Hunter Lawrence down-played the notion of any home advantage due to the bike-time that everybody will get tomorrow.
Team France took to the stage next, and Team Manager Gautier Paulin took the chance to pay homage to new World Champion Romain Febvre in a gracious gesture that brought a round of applause from those present. Febvre himself told of his surprise that the circuit looked “bigger and wider than on TV”, and that it shouldn’t take much getting used to for the MXGP regulars.
Team Italy Team Manager Thomas Traversini and his younger riders are happy that 40-year-old legend Antonio Cairoli is able to lend his experience to the squad, while Team Netherlands rider Kay de Wolf raised some humour as he told of how he asked Haiden Deegan, absent from injury, if he was just “afraid of getting taken out!”. Team Germany looked happy with new MX2 World Champion Simon Längenfelder, and their previous title winner Ken Roczen, although Kenny did state that he would have liked more bike time prior to the event.
Team Slovenia’s Tim Gajser would not be drawn on his chances of repeating his win at last year’s Nations, and Team Latvia were enjoying having all of their top riders healthy for once.
Then the home nation, Team USA, took to the stage. Team Manager Mike Panettiere acknowledged the challenge of having to replace two-thirds of his team with a week to go, but Eli Tomac repeatedly stated “We’re ready”, and looked eager to begin the job at hand!…
