Motocross

France and USA Battle at Motocross of Nations 2015

The world's top motocross nations fight for supremacy at the world's biggest motocross race.

By Eli Moore

4 min readPublished on 02/21/2017 · 12:21 PM UTC

Musquin and Barcia battle it out
© Jaanus Ree for RedBull.com

This past weekend, tens of thousands of fans flocked to the track in Ernee, France for the biggest motocross event in the world – the Motocross of Nations. Returning to Ernee for the first time since 2005, when Team USA took the trophy, anticipation was at an all-time high for this year’s event, with the returning champs and hometown heroes Team France facing off with the Americans. With three riders each (MXGP, MX2, and Open), the top teams in the world lined up for three motos on Sunday to determine who would take home the coveted Chamberlain Trophy.

Hard pack, and that's just the crowd
© Jaanus Ree for RedBull.com

Moto 1: MXGP + MX2

In the first moto, American fans immediately hit excitement level 11 when the field rounded turn one with Team USA’s Justin Barcia leading the way. Having qualified in third, Barcia looked far more at home in the lead on the Ernee track, and began pulling away from the field. Behind him, all eyes were on French rider Marvin Musquin. Riding a 250, Musquin picked his way through the pack. His amazing line choices to completely negate the power disadvantage that he had against the 450s. Musquin made his way to second, then set his sights on Justin Barcia in the lead.

Behind him, his French teammate Gautier Paulin had lost the front end in a fast sweeper, and was desperately trying to make up ground. Barcia’s USA teammate, the 250-mounted Jeremy Martin, was almost as impressive as Musquin, coming from a start outside the top 15 all the way to fifth by moto’s end. Musquin chased down Barcia, and the two duked it out in an exciting battle, passing back and forth before Musquin eventually became crossed up on a rutted jump landing and hit the ground. He would remount for a fourth, but with Barcia winning and Martin fifth, compared with Musquin’s fourth and Paulin’s eventual seventh, suddenly Team USA was in the driver’s seat.

Cooper Webb leads the charge
© Jaanus Ree for RedBull.com

Moto 2: MX2 + Open

Once again, an American led the charge around turn one in the second moto, with the 450 greenhorn Cooper Webb out in front. All eyes, however, were on the new world champion, Romain Febvre, who had been the fastest rider all weekend and was setting ridiculous lap times coming through the pack.

Febvre quickly made up the ground that Webb had gained early in the race, and subsequently made the pass for the lead. Webb stayed with Febvre throughout the moto, and even made some unexpected attempts at a pass, but could not stick anything to the 2015 MXGP champ. Webb eventually got out of shape in a rut, and went down. Losing no positions, he remounted but was never able to get back to Febvre. All the while, the MX2 rivals Marvin Musquin and Jeremy Martin were having their own battle. Musquin eventually made a pass stick on Martin, and then passed the Belgian Open rider Jeremy Van Horebeek for a third in the moto. Martin would finish with another fifth.

Febvre goes 1-1
© Jaanus Ree for RedBull.com

Moto 3: MXGP + Open

Coming into the final moto, France and USA were actually tied in points (the worst moto score is dropped in MXoN scoring). The effort by Team USA all day had been championship worthy, against the home team, and a stacked home team at that. Since Justin Barcia and Cooper Webb both had scored holeshots, matters were looking good for the red, white and blue.

Unfortunately, the Americans were deflated when both Barcia and Webb started the final moto outside the top ten. No surprise at all, Romain Febvre found his way into the lead early in the race, making the pass on the semi-retired New Zealander Ben Townley. Gautier Paulin made his way around Aussie Dean Ferris in fourth, and France was looking like the mission was complete. Barcia and Webb, however, were picking their way through the pack, and eventually Barcia passed Paulin and then the Russian Evgeny Bobryshev to move into third. Webb had stalled the bike while riding with Barcia, but reached Paulin at the last moments of the race. Webb could not make the move, and with that, France were the MXoN champions, the first repeat champs since USA in 2011.