Blogandt: The Day Australia Did Win

A lot of fans are buying stock in Team Australia for this year’s Motocross of Nations. Oz has had talented teams for awhile now, but for some reason things never seem to go their way at the big race. I’m just a pundit and a wag, so I not sure why, but I can guess. Maybe teams that don’t race on the continent week in and week out are at a disadvantage unless they have some major experience at the helm (in contrast, the U.S. has DeCoster running the show, and 25+ years of victories to draw from). But Reed and Byrne race for DeCoster, too, so I bet they will be treated well, and Reed should be a lot better outdoors than he was last year. But then, would RD help those guys just to help them beat his own team? And how can a Belgian guy end up running Team USA into battle against Belgium anyway?

Anyway, the Reed/Byrne/Metty team looks strong on paper, but the pressure in this race is extreme, and we’ll see if these guys can go out and get it. Reed is proven in the clutch, but we’ve never seen Byrne or Metcalfe really have to carry a load before.

Meanwhile, I do recall an international race where the Aussies actually did come out on top, and two thirds of the team was actually the same as it is now (Reed and Byrne). The race? The now-nearly-forgotten World Cup of Motocross in 2002, which was probably the most fun race I’ve ever been to. The event rose from the ashes of the ’02 MXoN, which was supposedly supposed to take place in California at a brand-new Competition Park facility. That brand-new Comp Park never really got built, and then the Soboba Indian tribe that owns the land locked the gates. Blame it on the Indians if you want, but it sure didn’t seem like the place was going to be ready, anyway, and I’m not sure if anyone who bought tickets ever got their money back.

They certainly didn’t get reimbursed for their travel. I had already bid for a plane ticket to California on Priceline (no refunds) so even after the MXoN got cancelled, I was going to California. Same for my British co worker, Jason Berry. We were both newbie employees back then, so we weren’t getting any expenses taken care of, but this was just a fun trip as pure fans. Plus, even though the MXoN was off, an “international race” was planned at Glen Helen, so the riders and teams that did make it to the U.S. could race, and the fans would have something to watch.

When we landed in Cali, we headed straight for Comp Park first. The race had been cancelled a week in advance, but it sure didn’t look like they were a week away from completing construction. Behind the locked gates we saw a field with a few jumps and some small sheds. Not a world class facility in my mind.

Then the visitors showed up. First, a mom and son from England. Then a husband and wife from Japan. And a couple from Tahiti, believe it or not. None of them knew the of Nations were cancelled. They were driving down a dirt road in a rental car with purchased tickets to the race in hand, expecting to see all the grandeur of American motocross. Instead they saw a locked gate, a few jumps, a some sheds.

JB and I tried to explain why the race was off. The Brit lad immediately launched into a swear-laden tirade, and his mom seemed okay with that. The Japanese couple, well, we couldn’t explain anything to them. The Tahiti folks simply took off. We eventually established communication with the Japanese (t-a-l-k-i-n-g s-l-o-w-l-y) and explained that Glen Helen would be hosting an international race on Sunday. We wrote a note and hung it on the locked gate, and our new friends even wrote the same message in Japanese. By the way, there wasn’t a single sign anywhere saying the MXoN was cancelled. In the two hours we hung out at Comp Park on Friday, we saw 20 dazed and confused world travelers. Can’t imagine what Sunday would have been like!

As for the World Cup race at Glen Helen, the event went from nothing to something in one week, thanks to the internet. Things happened fast thanks to simple and effective posts like “James Dobb is here from England, if he can find two teammates he will race for Team Great Britain.”

Major credit to the guys that made it happen, and I’m not really sure who, but I think Rick Doughty of Vintage Iron, mega-collector Gregg Primm, and Glen Helen’s Bud Feldkamp were the main dudes. And DC always tells me that this race was the birthplace of Wonder Wharthog Racing. Lots of internet power at work here.

Glen Helen was the perfect place to race, because every foreign rider in the U.S. lived within driving distance of the track. It might not have been every nation’s Dream Team, but teams they were. While driving into the front gate, for instance, we saw Eric Sorby cruising in with his KX125 in the back of a pickup. That was one third of Team France right there. Seb Tortelli had just signed with Suzuki, he drove up the road to race, too. (Seb would later crash out hard. A recurring theme for him, sadly).

As for Team USA, there weren’t many options. Once the real race was cancelled, two of the original team members, Ricky Carmichael and Mike LaRocco, chose to stay home. Then the virtual floodgates opened on Ricky. Back in ’02, the guy basically couldn’t do anything right, and the message boards exploded with vitrol for the man who wasn’t known as the GOAT yet. RC took quite a beating by the public for not racing the World Cup. LaRocco, meanwhile, no one said anything about him.

Tim Ferry, also an original Team USA member, decided to race. The other Team USA riders were basically guys who lived close to Glen Helen: Suzuki replacement rider Sean Hanblin and privateer hero Kyle Lewis.

Ferry was then anointed captain America, and he was expected to dominate the event. He was even armed with a new weapon, as Yamaha’s first-generation YZ400F/YZ426F bike had spawned the all-new YZ450F for 2003. This would be Ferry’s first race on it, but he had been Yamaha’s main man on the previous machine for a few years. Plus, he finished second to RC in the 250 nationals that year. His only weakness, one would think, was his Canadian-based mechanic. What was his name again? That guy was probably torn between Red Dog and team Maple Leaf.

Chad Reed, who had raced a YZ250F for Yamaha of Troy that year, was also going to race the 450. Reedy had said all year that he wanted to race in the big bike class, but this would be his maiden 450 voyage in the U.S. (even when he raced the 250 class in Europe the year before, it was on a KX250). I didn’t expect him to challenge Ferry until I watched practice. I couldn’t believe how fast and aggressive Reed looked on that new bike, attacking corners as if they were the villain in an action movie and they had killed his family. He would find a line, put the bike in it and then within .0000003 seconds, dump the clutch and unleash 450cc of fury like no man I had seen before. The berms were begging for mercy. Ask anyone who raced one: those 2003 YZ450Fs were absolute fire-breathers. This was a potent combination.

Isn’t it funny how much faster someone looks when they’re the fastest guy at the track that day? Watching Reed in practice at Glen Helen, I was sure that no one on the planet could possibly go faster. And remember, RC had completed the first perfect season in the history of the sport. Later, RC would prove himself faster than Reed outdoors, too. But without RC there to guage, it sure looked like Reed was the man. Kind of like watching Mike Brown and Ryan Hughes duke it out for the 125 win at High Point the next year. Everyone was saying, “I don’t think it’s possible to ride a 125cc motocross bike faster than those two rode it.”

Two weeks later James Stewart returned from injury at Budds Creek and absolutely dominated the event. Brown and Hughes weren’t even close on speed.

The World Cup race turned out awesome. I kind of saw it as a flea market for motocross. You didn’t know what you were going to find until you showed up. What countries would have team? Who was on them? What were they riding? You had no clue what you would find, and after watching a steady diet of Carmichael/Stewart domination all summer, it was a nice change. Their was an electric atmosphere at Glen Helen, and it was good.

The fans really liked it, too. There was so much internet furor and power churning up from the event that when I got home and wrote a column about the race, saying it was cool to see something different, I got ruined. Different wasn’t enough. The rabid fans wanted me to say it was the greatest thing that ever happened. Sorry, guys, it was. There.

In the race, all three riders on each team rode all three motos. Ferry looked to have Reed covered in the first moto, but then he started making mistakes and Reed got him. Then Ernesto Fonseca (riding a 250 outdoors for the first time) beat Reed in moto two (so much for Reed being the fastest man on earth that day). Ferry crashed out, and Hamblin and Grant Langston got into a take-out fest that spilled over into the third moto. Seems pretty funny now, since they’re buds. Ferry struggled in moto three from the affects of the crash in moto two. And according to Ferry’s Canadian mechanic, a Canadian (Blair Morgan) took Timmy out in moto three. Mixed emotions there in the Yamaha pits.

Reed won moto three, Byrne, I believe on a Honda CR250, finished fourth, and combined with consistent rides from Craig Anderson, Australia had won the event. Team USA finished second and Canada finished third, which means the top three teams were all north-American based. At a race put together at the last minute, the home-field advantage really helps.

The typical European powers were non-factors because they weren’t even there. Belgium didn’t have a team, England had their Team Manager Rob Herring hop on a bike just to have a third guy, and the French were done in by Tortelli’s big crash (Not sure if the World Cup counts in the official record book, but I swear Tortelli holds the career record for first turn crashes). Heck, Mike Metzger even raced the event as part of Team New Zealand, if that makes any sense at all. Anyway, it was all a little wacky, but that made it fun. And Australia did win…something.

A month later, a rescheduled MXoN took place in Spain, and Alessio Chiodi, Alex Puzar and Andrea Bartolini won the event for Italy. 

So, can Team Australia get it done this year? In a crazy, randomn, barely connected to MXoN history kind of way, I guess you could say they have gotten it done before.