Words and Photos by Jeff Kardas

The biggest race of the year. The most prestigious race in the World. The best racers from every continent on Earth together at one place, at one time, in a three-moto format to find the strongest country in motocross. Team USA won (again) and got to pack up the Chamberlin Cup and take it home for another year.

Held at Donington Park near Castle Donington in the East Midlands and/or Leicestershire region of central England, the event as a whole was definitely a winner too. With Youthstream's decision to make accessibility and fan comfort a priority over the track itself, though, many questioned the decision before the event even began. The fact of the matter is that a promoter could hold he MXoN in the middle of a field out in the desert somewhere (sound familiar?) and it'd still end up being an epic event. This was no different – the track constructed within the infield of the world-class Donington Park road circuit was very interesting for most of the riders, and despite it being essentially an outdoor supercross track, the complete lack of maintenance to the surface itself made for one heck of a rough, rutted and tricky race track.

So at this point, since reporting on the actual racing itself would be a bit redundant, we figured a bit of a look into the event itself and what it was like being there may be more interesting for you, the motocross.com reader. So without further ado (that's an English saying), here's how it felt to be there...

While it may seem odd that we're starting out with a photo of driving a car down the road, there's no better way to illustrate just how fundamentally different it is to visit a distant land for a race (or anything else for that matter). Driving on the left side of the road and the right side of a car in Great Britain is one real shock to the system; your entire mind and body scream ‘get on the other side!' while trying not to kill any other drivers in the process of getting it figured out. Well, we never got it figured out and luckily nobody was hurt, but this definitely set the tone for the next several days as everything was quite different.

Something that wasn't so different, at least in theory, was the track layout. Despite all of the European press and fans stating it was custom-made for the U.S. team, nothing could have been further from the truth. The dirt was something along the lines of a slick red clay version of Kenworthy's old national track in Ohio – it packed down very hard yet remained slick from rut to rut, many of which were quite deep and gnarly. To say the Americans were at an advantage here is just plain invalid, especially considering many of the other teams had raced on this very track twice in the recent past, most recently this past summer at the GP and the British Championship race.

Donington Park itself is an incredible facility, complete with a Formula One motorcar circuit which also holds MotoGP races, and is shadowed by a renaissance-era castle in behind the back straight. An actual castle, not just a nice big house. This place is special.

Another fun and exciting difference between the US races and the Red Bull MXoN and the FIM MX GPs in general are the food and beverage vendors. Drinking is widespread, much more so than the Nationals have experienced recently. Plenty of folks bring in their own, and there are limitless choices of beer, hard cider and liquor to choose from around the track.

To soak up all of the alcohol, the variety in food stuff is even more varied – Thai, Mexican, British, Sushi, American BBQ – everything was represented here and as we personally sampled – it was excellent!

However, the nationalism combined with massive alcohol consumption often resulted in some fairly bizarre behavior, which is just a small part of what makes the MXoN and GPs in general such a great experience.

The international flair certainly spread into the pit area, as the fans packed in to see what was happening.

Teams varied between most every country from the former Soviet Union – Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Moldavia and others to non-countries like Puerto Rico and even obscure entries like Team Mongolia.

Since we're speaking of the pits and of potentially unfair U.S. “advantages” over the competition, let's investigate the American Pit Compound (APC). Besides it being hands-down the most popular spot in the entire pits – typically crowded with on-lookers at all hours – it was also by far the least-accessible. It was an absolute military zone around the entire area, which included one team hauler, several large motorhomes and other large trucks, all surrounded by chain-link fence and guarded by several layers of security.

Was it an advantage? Heck who knows, but it certainly didn't hurt to at least mentally isolate themselves from the “foreigners” outside of the fencing. Probably the bigger advantage was that the team took an entirely different way to get onto the track that completely bypassed the throng of people filling the typical route that the other teams had to use.

While James and crew used the back way to reach the starting line, it was no doubt a bit easier on their pre-race mindset to be able to bypass the autographer seekers and other distractions that everyone else dealt with. Again, was it an advantage? Probably. Did it level the playing field a little bit due to the fact that these guys were so far from home? Arguably, yes. Did it really matter in the final results? Most likely not.

Another supposed advantage that the U.S. had was that they each bought two different bikes – 6 factory bikes total made the trip from the U.S. The team swapped between bikes during Saturday's practice session (which was 40 mins long) and decided which they liked best. Apparently RV preferred bike 1 of 2, as 2 of 2 was sitting idle in the pits on display all weekend. We honestly don't know if the other teams had this available to them, but one would assume that since they are based more close-by than the U.S. team was that it must have been an option to them.

With Stewart looking so intently out onto the track prior to Saturday's practice, the competition must have been sitting somewhere shuddering at the thought of what he was planning to do. But the interesting part of this photo is the fact that the Monster logo on his water bottle is covered with tape. One of a few things that we noticed throughout the weekend that attempted to downplay Monster's involvement at the Red Bull-sponsored Motocross of Nations, it was borderline comical to try and find evidence of it. The pit area was dominated by two monstrous (no pun intended) party tents constructed by Red Bull on one side and Monster on the other – directly adjacent to the USA pits.

Both had planned a massive post-race bash but we must say from personal experience that Monster was – hands-down – the winner of that competition. Otherwise, Red Bull was able to get the ‘official' event shirts pulled from the shelves prior to Sunday due to the presence of several prominently displayed Monster logos on the front of the shirt's design. So at nearly $50US for an event t-shirt, those who snatched one up on Saturday were still glad that they did despite the lighter wallet.

In the battle of track signage, though, Red Bull was absolutely dominant – and we might say absolutely brilliant as well.

The Red Bull arches make for some spectacular photo opportunities, no doubt about it, and their placement is great. It honestly was a welcome change to shooting the Nationals all summer where THOR/PU and Monster are omnipresent everywhere you look.

Continuing with the brilliance of this event is the presence of riders such as Team Australia's Chad Reed, who normally comes out of summer retirement to represent his country at the MXoN. Despite Chad's lackluster performances, he added some nice star-power with his Rockstar look and super-cool riding style.

On the opposite side of the “Underperformer-of-the-Weekend” category has to be Team Puerto Rico's Zach Osborne. Born and raised in Virginia, Zach was an honorary Puerto Rican for this race and boy, did he make them look good. In the first race on Sunday (MX3/MX2) moving through a pack of riders that included Michael Byrne, Timmy Ferry and several top GP riders and going from 26th to 6th in the process. This kid is going to be a star in Europe next year, and we wouldn't be surprised if he pulled off a World Championship at some point in the next year or two. It was clear he had just about everyone covered if not for some poor luck, although to be honest, that's always been part of the story with Osborne's pro career, hasn't it?

Timmy Ferry was once again the clutch performance that allowed Team USA to pull off the win after Stewart's fumble in the final moto. Ferry, who'd been more or less on cruise control up to that point, was able to pick up the pace and come across 5th after coming around the first lap in 22nd position. What's even crazier is that Timmy pulled off the overall win via – get this – 9-5 moto finishes, which was simply more consistently “good enough” than anyone else in MX3/Open.

Another rider who put in a great performance but who's results don't necessarily reflect it is South Africa's MX2 World Champ Tyla Rattray. Shown here behind Villopoto, Rattray went off the track early in the 2nd race, keeping him out long enough to wait for RV to come around to lap him so he could try and hang on his wheel to the finish. He did it. By Ryan's own admission, Rattray was forcing the pace enough that he wasn't able to back off and cruise like he wanted to, which must have been a bit maddening since unnecessarily pushing it could have easily forced a mistake and a disastrous result for Team USA. Other great performances but no room for photos: MX1 World Champion David Philippaerts' first moto dice with James Stewart which had the crowd on its feet for a few laps before James checked out; France's Sebastien Pourcel, who pushed Stewart harder than anyone has since Ricky Carmichael – but again, only for a few laps; Estonia's Tanel Leok was this close to pulling off that Race 3 moto win against Pourcel after Stewart stalled, it was a great ride and he was fast all weekend.

Finally, let's not forget France's Anthony Boissiere who was very much on the pace all weekend and running 2nd up to lap 11 behind Villopoto in Race 2, ending up way back in the results due to a rear flat (he runs tubeless tires on Alpina rims). Had it not been for that, he looked to be certainly set for 2nd which would've given France the overall victory. Mechanicals are a tough way to lose a race like this one. But then again, if James' KX450 would've fired right back up after his crash it would've been a non-issue anyhow. That's racin'.

However, Team France got their revenge during the podum celebration when, donned with goggles, they completely dominated the USA and Belgian teams to gain supremacy of the 2008 Red Bull Motocross of Nations podium party. Tres bien, dudes.

But in the end, Team USA got what they came for, and that was the Chamberlin Cup – for a record 19th time.

This year's Red Bull Motocross of Nations was a great event to attend, and motocross.com was proud to be part of it. Next year this historical event will take place somewhere in Italy, and it again promises to be the ‘best yet'. Hopefully, we shall see!