Crashing sucks. Anyone who rides hard will tell you that. It hurts. It can be expensive. It can fudge up your championship. Over the last couple of weeks we’ve seen a number of world class riders go soil-sampling – most notably MXGP rivals Ryan Villopoto and Antonio Cairoli.
Yep, that’s right, both Ryan the Lion and Tony the Tiger have been eating dirt. RV2’s world championship aspirations went for a Burton first at the Italian GP when he helped himself to four fingers of whiskey throttle. Like your mate who’s always chubber-chasing after a Jager Bomb frenzy, the multi-time AMA champ grabbed too big a handful and the resulting Larry Loop-Out was textbook stuff. What’s next from RV? The Dirt Doc’s holding out for a timeless Flying W…
You can watch it here but be warned, you might get wood from hearing Paul Malin saying ‘coccyx, coccyx’ and then apparently having an orgasm on live TV. I’ve got an image of his cum face burned into my brain…
The weekend after at the GP of Europe in Holland it was Tone’s turn. The reigning champ was hanging it out as he chased race one leader Gautier Paulin and, technically, given his race position he was the new championship leader – until he spammed himself in the rhythm section.
Watch it here…
The Italian broke bones in his hand but still scored a brave seventh in race two while Villopotato decided to sit out the GP entirely. So with Paulin taking a double win for HRC, Cairoli losing a shedload of points and RV2 not scoring at all it’s all change in the championship.
As it stands it’s Max Nagl who leads Clement Desulk, sorry, Desalle by five points after running 2-2 behind Paulin with Cairoli slipping 30 points off the pace. There’s still 13 rounds to go and Cairoli’s got plenty of time to claw it back so unless Paulin keeps building MXGP is shaping up to be a red hot Euro ménage à trois. And we may not find out who’s a giver, who’s a taker and who’ll be Lucky Pierre in the middle until the fat lady sings – assuming your Jager-Bombed mate lets her come up for air.
MX2 at Valkenswaard was a Jeffrey Herlings massacre. The Bullit hasn’t lost a GP here now for six years and after the shock of losing the overall in Italy to Tim Gajser it’s now very much business as usual for the young Dutchman.
British highlights included Shaun Simpson taking fifth overall in MXGP. As we’ve discussed in a previous Dirt Doctor, Woody from Toy Story is super-shweeeet in the sand so it’s no surprise and he moves up to eighth in the championship as a result.
Mighty Max Anstie came home second in the first MX2 race before a technical problem handed him a big fat DNF second time out and Adam Sterry took a double in the EMX250 class to move into the series lead. Louis Gregory was also smiling in the EMX300 two-stroke class after nailing second overall – good work Lulu! But it was bad times for Steven Clarke, the reigning EMX250cc champ, who had both his race bikes nicked from the paddock overnight.
Over in America the Monster Energy AMA SX series reached round 15 at the Levi Stadium in Santa Clara. With both the 450 and 250 West titles already sewn-up by Ryan Dungey and Cooper Webb it could have been a snoozy, not a doozy. Sure enough, Dungey kicked ass in the 450s for his seventh win of the season but the 250 West race was a cracker with Webb recovering from a first turn pile-up to scrap his way to the front by the halfway point.
The following weekend in New Jersey it was Dungey’s Red Bull KTM team-mate Marvellous Marvin Musquin who was celebrating. Marv attacked throughout the 15-lap Main Event and his win earned him the East Coast 250SX crown.
A bit of trials news now and reigning world champion Toni Bou claimed a double win in Japan. The 16-time champ – that’s eight on the bounce indoors and outside – is the most successful rider in the history of the sport and shows no signs of slowing down. Want to know how good he is? Take a look at this…
That’s all for now Dirt Digglers, tune in soon for a weekend preview…
Words: TDD Image: HRC