Team New Zealand qualified eighth out of 30 countries at this year’s 64th annual Motocross of Nations on the outskirts of Denver Colorado.

Motueka’s Josh Coppins (Aprilia) fought back after a collision near the start of his MX1 class qualification race, battling his way through the field from about 20th position to eventually settle for 10th.

New Zealand was on its way to the final.

Then, just as temperatures at the Thunder Valley Motocross Park pushed past the 84 degrees Fahrenheit mark (about 30 degrees Celsius), Taupo’s Brad Groombridge, making his MxoN debut, pulled off an astounding holeshot to lead 29 of the world’s biggest stars out of turn one.

Kiwi fans in the crowd were either stunned into open-mouthed silence or screamed themselves hoarse in delight.

Not unexpectedly, the 20-year-old Groombridge (pictured above and below) was quickly overtaken by a gaggle of Grand Prix and AMA stars but, as the race wore on, Groombridge found fresh speed and actually set his fastest times late in the race, eventually coming home 14th.

With only two of the three bike category qualifying races to be counted towards team points, New Zealand had already done enough to qualify.

But the best was still to come from the tiny South Pacific island nation.

Taupo’s Ben Townley slid comfortably into second spot soon after the start of the open class qualifier, perhaps content to chase Colorado native Andrew Short as the American, not surprisingly, put on a master class for his home fans and that’s how it finished with Short first and Townley runner-up.

This gave New Zealand the luxury of discarding Groombridge’s 14th placing – the team score for New Zealand was therefore 12 points (Coppins’ 10th and Townley’s 2nd).

Meanwhile, the day belonged to Team USA as Short’s win was added to a second victory, that of just-crowned AMA 250cc chamion Trey Canard, who won the MX2 qualifying race.

That gave Team USA the perfect 1-1 scoreline and a meagre 2 points.

The Americans dropped their worst score, which was provided by the man least expected to do so, just-crowned AMA 450cc champion Ryan Dungey. Dungey had no answer for MX1 world champion Antonio Cairoli, who led the MX1 qualifier from start to finish.

Second best nation was Germany (Ken Roczen second in MX2, Max Nagl fourth in open class and Marcus Schiffer was 15th in MX1). Roczen had been a whisker away from winning the MX2 qualifier but he threw his bike away within a few hundred metres of the finish, handing the glory instead to Canard.

Third best in the race for qualification (and tomorrow’s gate selection for racing proper) was Puerto Rico (Kyle Regal finishing third in the open class, Zach Osborne was fourth in MX2 and Christian Ruiz placed 26th in MX1).

Fourth was Belgium, followed by France, Italy, Australia and then New Zealand.

It’s all just for bragging rights so far, however, and the real business of finding the world’s best motocross nation comes tomorrow.

© Words and photos by Andy McGechan, www.BikesportNZ.com

Team Qualifying Results

1. USA – 2 Points

2. Germany – 6 Points

3. Puerto Rico – 7 Points

4. Belgium – 8 Points

5. France – 8 Points

6. Italy – 9 Points

7. Australia – 11 Points

8. New Zealand – 12 Points

9. Great Britain – 17 Points

10. Spain – 18 Points

11. Switzerland – 18 Points

12. Japan – 22 Points

13. Estonia – 23 Points

14. Portugal – 23 Points

15. Latvia – 24 Points

16. Austria – 24 Points

17. Canada – 25 Points

18. Brazil – 25 Points

19.Finland – 27 Points

Qualifying Heat MX1 – Classification

1 Cairoli, Antonio ITA

2 Metcalfe, Brett AUS

3 Paulin, Gautier FRA

4 Dungey, Ryan USA

5 Barragan, Jonathan ESP

6 Ramon, Steve BEL

7 Leok, Tanel EST

8 Goncalves, Rui POR

9 Nicholls, Jake GBR

10 Coppins, Joshua NZL

11 Medaglia, Jeremy CAN

12 Walkner, Matthias AUT

13 Narita, Akira JPN

14 Gonzalez, Gerald CRC

15 Schiffer, Marcus GER

16 Edmonds, Stuart IRL

17 Steinbergs, Ivo LAT

18 Eriksson, Toni FIN

19 Pashchynskyi, Oleksandr UKR

20 Hultman, Andreas SWE

21 Wicht, Gregory SUI

22 Cidade, Anderson BRA

23 Espinosa, Felipe ECU

24 Gudmundsson, Gylfi ISL

25 Perrotta, Giovanni VEN

26 Ruiz, Christian PUR FMPR

27 Hereida, Alberto MEX

28 Kazakevicius, Mindaugas LTU

29 Jao, Jolet PHI NAMSSA

30 Fernandez, Rodolfo GTM

Qualifying Heat MX2 – Classification

1 Canard, Trey USA

2 Roczen, Ken GER

3 van Horebeek, Jeremy BEL

4 Osborne, Zach PUR

5 Musquin, Marvin FRA

6 Davalos, Martin ECU

7 Karro, Matiss LAT

8 Lupino, Alessandro ITA

9 Ferris, Dean AUS

10 Kullas, Harri FIN

11 Guillod, Valentin SUI

12 Barr, Martin IRL

13 Noren, Frederik SWE

14 Groombridge, Brad NZL

15 Benoit, Kaven CAN

16 Rätsep, Priit EST

17 Butron, Jose Antonio ESP

18 Mihara, Takuya JPN

19 Castro, Cristopher BRA

20 Martin, Humberto VEN

21 Rohas, Alejandro CRC

22 Pashchynskyi, Mykola UKR

23 Rukstela, Nerijus LTU

24 Castillo, Estefan GTM

25 Oros, Carlos MEX

26 Alvarez, Ralph PHI

27 Wilson, Dean GBR

28 Rauchenecker, Pascal

29 Basaula, Hugo POR

Qualifying Heat Open – Classification

1 Short, Andrew USA

2 Townley, Ben NZL

3 Regal, Kyle PUR

4 Nagl, Maximilian GER

5 Desalle, Clement BEL

6 Balbi, Antonio BRA

7 Tonus, Arnaud SUI

8 Anderson, Brad GBR

9 Atsuta, Yoshitaka JPN

10 Marmont, Jay AUS

11 Monni, Manuel ITA

12 Schmidinger, Günter AUT

13 Lozano, Alvaro ESP

14 Keast, Kyle CAN

15 Correia, Luis POR

16 Crockard, Gordon IRL

17 Söderberg, Jon FIN

18 Freibergs, Lauris LAT

19 Morozov, Roman UKR

20 Eriksson, Alexander SWE

21 Castillo, Tomas Angel GTM

22 Benenaula, Andres ECU

23 Jonsson, Hjalmar ISL

24 Carcia, Martin MEX

25 Trasolini, Raimundo VEN

26 San Andres, Kenneth PHI

27 Päzemeckas, Rimantas LTU

28 Mora, Johan CRC

29 Krestinov, Gert EST

30 Boog, Xavier FRA