It’s Time For The 2023 Motocross of Nations
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Presented by Yamalube
After a busy first day in France, riders, teams, and fans from around the world are ready for bikes to get on track for Saturday’s Qualifying Motos and Sunday’s battle for the Chamberlain Trophy. Moto Club Ernee has hosted the MXON twice this millennium, first in 2005 and again in 2015. The historic race was supposed to return to the hillside track in 2020, but those plans were pushed back three years by the pandemic and previously confirmed events. More than 30,000 tickets were sold in the months leading up, but the actual number of spectators could double that by the end of the weekend. InFront and the FIM spent Friday morning briefing the attending teams with a technical presentation of rules and procedures, and with the random ballot draw to determine gate pick for Qualifying. Morocco will have first choice on the grid for Saturday’s MXGP, MX2, and Open Class Motos, while Team USA will go sixth, Germany tenth, Belgium twelfth, Australia thirteenth, the Netherlands twenty-fourth, Italy twenty-fifth, France twenty-sixth, and Canada thirty-seventh. Here’s how Saturday will play out: each division will get 40 minutes of Free Practice in the morning to learn the hard packed track, followed by five minutes of starts down the long straight and into the tight right turn. The afternoon will be the first races of the weekend, as each class will have one 20 minute plus two lap moto, and the combined results of all three team riders will determine which countries make into the championship motos. Teams with a high point tally will run the C Final at the end of the day, and the top finishing country will advance to Sunday morning’s B Final. Sunday is when things will get serious. Teams will be split into groups for the morning Warm-Up, followed by the B Final, where the winning team will go on to the day’s three-moto battle. Moto One will be the MX2 and MXGP classes, Moto Two will be MX2 and Open, and Moto Three will be MXGP and Open. All three races in the afternoon are the standard thirty minutes plus two laps. Having a low point score is the goal at the MXON, ideally in the teens or even single digits, as all six results from the riders will be calculated, with the worst moto finish dropped. Every lap of action will be streamed live and available on demand through MXGP-TV.com, and international broadcasts, including a tape delayed three-hour block on CBS Sports airing Sunday afternoon, make it possible to see the race anywhere.
