A MUST-WIN RACE | Bikesportnz

Team New Zealand is again headed for the B final at the Motocross of Nations this year.

The deep and unforgiving sand of Lommel in Belgium claimed the Kiwis among its many victims during the qualification stage of the big annual event, the “Olympic Games of motocross”.

Motueka’s Josh Coppins was the only Kiwi to post a top-10 finish, coming home ninth overall in his MX1 class qualification race, just ahead of Britain’s Tommy Searle and Ireland’s Martin Barr.

Mount Maunganui’s Cody Cooper (open class) and Mangakino’s Kayne Lamont (MX2 class) each finished 22nd in their respective qualifying races and, even with one of those two scores discarded, it gave the New Zealanders 31 points, causing them to miss out by one point from qualifying for Sunday’s main races.

Cooper had, in fact, finished 15th in his race but he was penalised one minute after his bike failed a post-race noise test.

Team Slovenia, with 30 points, edged out the Kiwis and qualified 19th, taking the last automatic spot in the main event.

The Kiwi trio will now need to steady themselves for an all-out attack on the B final, the winner of that race gaining the 20th and last spot on the start line for the main event.

Meanwhile, flying Dutchman Jeffrey Herlings won the Open class qualifying race, Italian Antonio Cairoli won the MX1 class and German Ken Roczen won the MX2 class, making it an all orange affair on the top step of the three podiums for the KTM brand.

Top qualifiers were Team Germany, thanks to Roczen’s MX2 win and MX1 rider Max Nagle finishing runner-up to Cairoli in the MX1 race. Their third team rider, open class pilot Marcus Schiffer, finished seventh.

Second best in qualifying was Belgium (Ken De Dycker, Jeremy Van Horebeek and Clement Desalle) with Italy taking the No.3 spot overall.

The champion United States team qualified an unaccustomed seventh overall as MX1 rider Ryan Dungey finished 6th in the MX1 race, Blake Baggett finished 3rd in the MX2 class and Justin Barcia was excluded in the open class after receiving outside assistance after crashing into trackside banners, former American MXoN rider Chuck Sun the guilty party as he jumped in to help Barcia.

Team Australia – Todd Waters, Luke Styke and Lawson Bopping – qualified 10th.

It is significant to note that teams to join New Zealand in the B final include such traditional powerhouse nations as the Czech Republic, Spain and Austria. The “other Team USA”, Peurto Rico (Zach Osborne, Kyle Chisholm and Gion Aponte), qualified only 24th.

Saturday results:

MX1 qualification race:

1. Cairoli, 2. Nagl, 3. Desalle, 4. Paulin, 5. Bobryshev, 6. Dungey, 7. De Reuver, 8. Goncalves, 9. Coppins (NZ), 10. Searle.

MX2 qualification race:

1. Roczen, 2. Van Horebeek, 3. Baggett, 4. Musquin, 5. Nicholls, 6. Coldenhoff, 7. Tonkov, 8. Styke, 9. Ratsep, 10. Heibye. Lamont (NZ) 22nd.

Open qualification race:

1. Herlings, 2. De Dycker, 3. Leok, 4. Anstie, 5. Guarneri, 6. Waters, 7. Schiffer, 8. Guillod, 9. Correia, 10. Bengtsson. Cooper (NZ) 22nd.

Qualification Team results: (top two results count):

1. Germany 3 pts, 2. Belgium 4pts, 3. Italy 6pts, 4. The Netherlands 7pts, 5. France 8pts, 6. Great Britain 9pts, 7. USA 9pts, 8. Estonia 12pts, 9. Russia 12pts, 10. Australia 14pts.

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