Motocross des Nations line up

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The grand finale of the motocross season will be at Donington Park this weekend as the Motocross des Nations hits British shores for the third time in the event’s 62 year history.

A total of 35 countries will all be aiming to do enough in the heat races on Saturday to make it through to the Sunday finals.

The British team is made up of double British MX1 Champion Billy Mackenzie, MX2 GP runner-up Tommy Searle and GP rider Sean Simpson. Mackenzie will be on a 450 Honda while Searle and Simpson will both be on 250 KTMs.

There will be three classes MX1 for 450s, MX2 for 250s and Open where each team get to decide whether to put out a second MX1 or MX2 style bike. Each rider will get a point respective to their finishing place at the end of each race which then goes forward to the team, total and the team with the least points at the end of the finals is declared the champion.

MCN spoke to Searle ahead of the weekend as he tried out the track, which was originally created for the British Motocross GP.

Speaking of the training the three of them will do ahead of the weekend, he said: “We will just carry on the regimes we’ve been doing. We’ve been riding all year so we’re all pretty fit.”

The Derby-based rider has spent quite a lot of time with team-mate Mackenzie recently as the Scot has been staying in Derby.

“Me and Billy get on really well as friends. He’s been staying in Derby recently and I’m based there now so we train quite a lot together. We chill out, go into town, ride and play up there, it’s not a bad life!

“This is my first Motocross des Nations. It is going to be an exciting race but different to other world races, due to the countries’ emotion involved in this. It is going to be the best race of the year. Winning the race is going to be hard as the US has a really good team, but with Tommy (Searle) in the team we’re very competitive.

“There’s no pressure on a championship, you just do your best and hopefully that’s enough. It’s a good team so hopefully we can get a podium, the US has the strongest team so they’ll be our main competitors.”

A typical week of training for Searle is a rest day on Monday, especially if he’s been racing at the weekend or he uses this to travel back from meetings; Tuesdays and Wednesdays are gym training and riding; Thursdays are ‘chill out’ days and Fridays are spent travelling to the circuits for the weekend’s races.

Other riders to look out for will be American MX1 champion James Stewart, AMA Motocross Lites champion Ryan Villopoto and AMA MX1 runner up Tim Ferry in the defending American team while newly crowned MX1 GP champion David Philippaerts and MX2 GP champion Tyla Ratttray will also be competing as part of the Italian and South African teams respectively so it really will be a battle of the best in the world.

There will be a female taking on all the testosterone of the other 104 riders. Puerto Rico’s Tarah Gieger who will be competing in her second MotoX des Nations.

Practice begins at 10am on Saturday, September 27 with MX1 with the qualifying heats beginning at 2.30pm. On the Sunday the warm-ups start at 8.40am with the first race of the day as the B Final for those who didn’t make the cut from the Saturday qualifiers. The main races begin at 1pm

For more information on the MotoX des Nations see the Donington Park web-site www.donington-park.co.uk or by ringing the Donington hotline 0871 230 7134.

Click the country to view its riders

UNITED STATES
FRANCE
BELGIUM
ITALY
GREAT BRITAIN
SPAIN
JAPAN
SWITZERLAND
GERMANY
CANADA
ESTONIA
SOUTH AFRICA
IRELAND
SWEDEN
LATVIA
BRAZIL
CZECH REPUBLIC
PORTUGAL
AUSTRALIA
UKRAINE
VENEZUELA
PUERTO RICO
ICELAND
MONGOLIA
BELARUS
RUSSIA
NETHERLANDS
NEW ZEALAND
NORWAY
DENMARK
SLOVAKIA
FINLAND
SLOVENIA
HUNGARY
LITHUANIA

UNITED STATES
1 STEWART James MX1 KAWASAKI 450
2 VILLOPOTO Ryan MX2 KAWASAKI 250
3 FERRY Tim OPEN KAWASAKI 450
 
FRANCE
4 POURCEL Sébastien MX1 KAWASAKI 450
5 FROSSARD Steven MX2 KAWASAKI 250
6 AUBIN Nicolas OPEN YAMAHA 450
 
BELGIUM
7 DE DYCKER Ken MX1 SUZUKI 450
8 VAN HOREBEEK Jeremy MX2 KTM 250
9 RAMON Steve OPEN SUZUKI 450
 
ITALY
10 PHILIPPAERTS David MX1 YAMAHA 450
11 MONNI Manuel MX2 YAMAHA 250
12 SALVINI Alex OPEN SUZUKI 450
 
GREAT BRITAIN
13 MACKENZIE Billy MX1 HONDA 450
14 SEARLE Tommy MX2 KTM 250
15 SIMPSON Shaun OPEN KTM 250
 
SPAIN
16 BARRAGAN Jonathan MX1 KTM 450
17 CAMPANO Carlos MX2 YAMAHA 250
18 LOZANO Alvaro OPEN KTM 505

JAPAN
19 ARAI Hiroaki MX1 KAWASAKI 450
20 KITAI Yoshiki MX2 SUZUKI 250
21 KOJIMA Yohei OPEN SUZUKI 450
 
SWITZERLAND
22 BILL Julien MX1 HONDA 450
23 TONUS Arnaud MX2 KTM 250
24 WALTHER Patrick OPEN YAMAHA 500
 
GERMANY
25 NAGL Maximilian MX1 KTM 450
26 SCHIFFER Marcus MX2 KTM 250
27 SIEGL Daniel OPEN SUZUKI 450
 
CANADA
28 FACCIOTTI Colton MX1 YAMAHA 450
29 MEDAGLIA Tyler MX2 SUZUKI 250
30 KLATT Dusty OPEN KAWASAKI 450
 
ESTONIA
31 LEOK Tanel MX1 KAWASAKI 450
32 KRESTINOV Gert MX2 KTM 250
33 LEOK Aigar OPEN YAMAHA 450
 
SOUTH AFRICA
34 BRADSHAW Neville MX1
35 RATTRAY Tyla MX2 KTM 250
36 FITZGERALD Kerim OPEN
 
IRELAND
37 CROCKARD Gordon / tbc MX1 HONDA 450
38 BARR Martin / tbc MX2 YAMAHA 250
39 GARRETT Wayne / tbc OPEN SUZUKI 450
 
SWEDEN
40 HULTMAN Andreas MX1 SUZUKI 450
41 THURESSON Filip MX2 SUZUKI 250
42 CARLSSON Johan OPEN SUZUKI 450
 
LATVIA
43 FREIBERGS Lauris MX1 YAMAHA 450
44 BOBKOVS Aigars MX2 KTM 250
45 LIVS Davis OPEN YAMAHA 450
 
BRAZIL
46 NUNES DA SILVA Leandro MX1 HONDA 450
47 CARLOS RAMOS Jean MX2 HONDA 250
48 JORGE BALBI JR Antonio OPEN HONDA 450
 
CZECH REPUBLIC
49 MICHEK Martin MX1 HONDA 450
50 SMITKA Petr MX2 YAMAHA 250
51 ZERAVA Martin OPEN HONDA 450
 
PORTUGAL
55 GONCALVES Paulo MX1 HONDA 450
56 GONCALVES Rui MX2 KTM 250
57 CORREIA Luis OPEN SUZUKI 450
 
AUSTRALIA
58 REED Chad MX1 SUZUKI 450
59 METCALFE Brett MX2 KAWASAKI 250
60 BYRNE Michael OPEN SUZUKI 450
 
UKRAINE
61 MOROZOV Roman MX1 TM 450
62 PASHCHYNSKYI Oleksandr MX2 KTM 250
63 PASHCHYNSKYI Mykola OPEN KTM 450
 
VENEZUELA
70 SANDOVAL Michel MX1 YAMAHA 450
71 MARTIN Humberto MX2 YAMAHA 250
72 MACIA Fernando OPEN YAMAHA 450
 
PUERTO RICO
82 APONTE Gino MX1 YAMAHA 450
83 GIEGER Tarah MX2 YAMAHA 250
84 OSBORNE Zach OPEN YAMAHA 450
 
ICELAND
85 THORDARSON Valdimar MX1 YAMAHA 450
86 OMARSSON Aron MX2 KAWASAKI 250
87 SIGURDARSON Einar OPEN KTM 505
 
MONGOLIA
101 KHALIUNBOLD Erdenebileg MX1
102 TEMUUJIN Khadbaatar MX2
103 GANOD Boldbaatar OPEN
 
BELARUS
104 TYLETSKY Evgeni MX1 SUZUKI 450
105 SABIRZIANAU Siarhei MX2 KAWASAKI 250
106 HIRUTS Aliaksandr OPEN HONDA 480
 
RUSSIA
107 ASTAYKIN Sergey MX1 KTM 450
108 BOBRISHEV Evgeny MX2 YAMAHA 250
109 TONKOV Vitaly OPEN YAMAHA 450

NETHERLANDS
110 DE REUVER Marc MX1 HONDA 450
111 KLEIN KROMHOF Ceriel MX2 KTM 250
112 VERHOEVEN Bas OPEN HONDA 450

NEW ZEALAND
113 COPPINS Josh MX1 YAMAHA 450
114 HURLEY Daryl MX2 SUZUKI
115 COOPER Cody OPEN SUZUKI

NORWAY
116 AULISETHER Fredrik MX1 HONDA 450
117 NYEGAARD Remi MX2 HONDA 250
118 SVINSÄS Lars Thomas OPEN HONDA 450

DENMARK
119 JENSEN Kasper MX1 HONDA 450
120 LARSEN Nikolaj MX2 SUZUKI 250
121 JORGENSEN Rasmus OPEN SUZUKI 250

SLOVAKIA
122 BUCENEC Tomas MX1 HONDA 450
123 KOHUT Martin MX2 KTM 250
124 SIMKO Tomas OPEN HONDA 250

FINLAND
125 PYRHÖNEN Antti MX1 HONDA 450
126 KULLAS Harri MX2 KTM 250
127 SEISTOLA Matti OPEN HONDA 450

SLOVENIA
128 GERCAR Klemen MX1 YAMAHA 450
129 IRT Jernej MX2 YAMAHA 250
130 KRAGELJ Saso OPEN YAMAHA 480

HUNGARY
131 NEMETH Kornèl MX1 KTM 450
132 SZVOBODA Bence MX2 KTM 250
133 CLUNI Läsllo OPEN HONDA 450

LITHUANIA
134 AGAFONOVAS Oskaras MX1 SUZUKI 450
135 MACHROV Raimund MX2 YAMAHA 250
136 BUCAS Vytautas OPEN KAWASAKI 250

Sarah Carnell

By Sarah Carnell