Faces at the Races | 2024 MXON at Matterley Basin

By Billy Rainford

I’m definitely a little late with this ‘Faces at the Races’ from the 2024 Motocross of Nations (MXON) at Matterley Basin in the UK, but here it is.

First up, it was Colton Facciotti who took first driving duties from Heathrow Airport in London. I heard another driver was unable to find their way to the hotel they could see across the street, but we won’t embarrass Jeff Ryan here…
Parker Eales was there to take in a European MXON. It’s something every moto fan should experience at least once.
Another SICK set up put together by Team Manager Kourtney Lloyd.
I warned Josiah Natzke that I was doing donuts in the parking lot on his Team New Zealand race bike. He simply told me to prove it. Bluff called.
This was the final KTM Canada gig for Justin Roney as he is now moved over to Priority MX as Team Manager.
Kourtney sweats the big stuff and the small stuff.
I still love that Kourtney and Kaven looked behind them when I joked.
I take photos. James Lissimore composes them.
The hockey jerseys were the cherry on top of the Canadian sundaes.
Just milling about waiting to be called for a photo.
Jeff and Dylan Wright make a good racing pair.
An instant classic.
Ditto.
For the mantle.
It’s great having Ben there. He knows what he’s doing and his experience has a calming effect in the pits.
D Spec jumped ship and was mechanic for Josiah.
This guy.
It was #114 Yuki Ukura from Japan who crashed hard in the first turn of the B Main.
I was really happy to see the 3 riders getting along well leading up to the race weekend.
Nico Hebert and Austin Jones getting Kaven Benoit ready for practice on Thursday at Oxford Moto Parc.
Another 450 rider for Kevin Tyler at MX101? Let’s see what Carl Vaillancourt has left in the tank!
There will come a day when this photo pops up as a Throwback Thursday entry and we’ll all laugh at how old the vehicles look.
KTM Canada’s Matt Deroy pumped with the new Fly gear for Jess.
The boys watching the Stopwatch Nationals.
With both Lawrence brothers on the team, you just knew Team Australia was in for good things. Kyle Webster was the wild card but he ended up going 11-19.
I lost a bet saying Team USA would NOT be on the podium. I blame Mr. Tomac.
I think what we were all most surprised by was the fact that age finally caught up to Kaven and he just wasn’t able to turn off his brain and twist the throttle. He said as much in our post-race interview on Sunday. Trust me, it happens to everyone sooner or later.
I haven’t posted this shot of practice starts yet, but it just shows you that you don’t actually get 100% traction off the grates.
Phil Nicoletti has hung up his professional leathers but was in attendance helping out the riders off the track. We shook hands but I don’t know if I’d call our fence fully mended…
Carl raced the 1989 MXON at Gaildorf, Germany in 1989 with Al Dyck and Ross Pederson. That’s a good team! Jeff Ward, Jeff Stanton, and Mike Kiedrowski won it for the USA that year. We wren’t in the top 10.
Friday was also Opening Ceremonies.
I’m giving Natalie Wright the Canadian Congeniality award.
I think Kourtney was the only manager who got on the MXGP-TV broadcast for an interview.
Just out here cutting years off our lives breathing all this stuff.
Are you an avid follower of MXGP over here or only if Jeffrey Herlings is mentioned?
Kyle Thompson receiving my latest bet regarding whether or not the squished spider on my wall would be removed by the cleaners that day or not. It wasn’t and he won.
A for Effort and Australia.
Z for New Zealand. 🤣
“Are you wearing that blow-up costume again this year?” “I think you know the answer…”
Tanel Leok was competing for Estonia before Sebastien Racine was born.
I don’t know many cowboys who say, “Hang loose.”
Kate Kowalchuk getting the shots. She’ll stay in Europe and coach hockey. Cool.
How will Jorge Prado do on a Kawasaki in the USA?
If you watched our MXON video, you would hear the huge bang as Team Germany went through. I have a funny story about, “Don’t mention the war…”
You can argue with me if you want, but I’d say Jett “Jeff” Lawrence is the fastest rider in the world right now.
So, you’re saying, “Go that way really fast and if something gets in my way, turn?” (Yep, I went back to the Better Off Dead reference well)
Jeff gives me the peace sign. He went to Nazarre in Portugal on route to the ISDE in Spain after the MXON and sent me a nice photo of the wave. If you’re unfamiliar, do yourself a favour and head over to YouTube immediately.
Young Chandler Powell totally manned up and raced the 65 bLU cRU SuperFinal after breaking his pelvis and then losing the tip of his big toe. Big fan here, Chan Man.
Heidi Cooke in her prime or Eve Brodeur in hers? Who would win the race?
I’m happy to be tall but sometimes I wish I could ride a Supermini today. Let’s see Tyler Medaglia rip this thing!
Talon Medaglia really should have been on the podium, but he didn’t get the start he needed. He was catching 3rd place but then went down and had to settle for 4th. Great ride though, Talon!
Jess with the pre-qualifying game face.
Mr. MXON Antonio Cairoli. Man, he was money at this event for years.
Nico giving Kaven the news during the MX2 qualifying race.
And then it was on to Sunday. Canada qualified 17th to go straight to the motos and avoid the dreaded B Main where you had to win to move on.
Upper management inside joke.
Heartbreak for Team New Zealand in the B Main. Josiah grabbed the holeshot but then had to pull in for goggles. It seemed to be unclear on the rule about riding without goggles.
Megane with some final well wishes for Jess heading into moto 1, MXGP/MX2.
Kourtney’s attention to detail.
As a reporter, I’m not supposed to have favourites, so I’ll just say it was good to see Eli Tomac do well this year. 😉
Cooper Webb ended up 5th overall in MX2.
Ken Roczen looked good but wasn’t up to the pace of the leaders. He was 8th (10-10) in MXGP for Germany.
The races came down to vision for a lot of riders.
We had some mist and very light rain, but it didn’t actually RAIN until after the awards. We got lucky.
I watched riders do the quad and riders right behind them go triple/single and I didn’t see any time difference, but one was definitely more poplar with the fans and photographers!
There was so much smoke during the sight lap that riders couldn’t see the finish line and had to roll it. Not in this shot, but it reminded me of it.

OK, story time:

So, we could stand in the first turn inside the fence but they didn’t want us kneeling for safety reasons. Most of us got to our spots early enough to grab a good one and I did that for each moto.

I’m standing there as riders were getting set on the gate for a moto. Some guy…HUGE guy… pushes through on my right and stands directly in front of me. He didn’t even have a camera of any kind of a headset. No vest…nothing.

As a Canadian, the best way to make me angry is to be inconsiderate. It’s the one thing that will set me off.

I touched his left arm and asked him to not stand in my way for the start. He shoved me as hard as he could and said, “Don’t touch me…don’t f@#$ing touch me!!” The guy was about my height but must have had 100 pounds on me. He was massive!

I didn’t raise my voice and just told him that he’d stepped right in front of me and that I couldn’t see. I pointed out that he didn’t even have a camera or anything.

Then, his buddy with a headset to his right started telling me to “eff off” repeatedly. I was like, I’m not 20 and we’re not at a night club fighting over the pool table. He just continued saying what he’d been saying. It was like a men’s league hockey fight: “Eff you…no, eff you…no, eff you...”

Fortunately, a couple photographers to my left watched in horror and managed to step in and calm things down before I got absolutely beaten to death. It was enough to get my heart pumping but I went back to that spot for the next race too.

I showed Brad “Automotoco” Nemeth the two guys when we were there next and he said, “OMG, that dude is massive and just doesn’t look right!” Ya, I know! I wouldn’t say I backed down, exactly, but it would not have ended well for me.

Sunday actually started with the bLU cRU 125 race that involved Canadian #226 Jonathan Bergeron. He pinned it from the outside gate, after seizing a bike the day before, but hit a downed rider and had to start the race basically last. He made it up to 16th and put in a very impressive ride.
Nations podium: Australia (26), USA (29), The Netherlands (36). Canada was 18th.
First win for Team Australia.

Final Thought:

Team Canada didn’t want for anything on this trip – they ate very well and were treated like royalty at every turn. We all know our riders are capable of a top 10 result if everything goes to plan.

But our riders only have 8 races during the summer to worry about. That’s just not enough to compete with riders south of the border or over in Europe. Our Pro Series goes from June to the middle of August – 8 rounds of racing over 2 1/2 months. That’s it!

I think our riders need time on these massive tracks so they’re not as surprised when they see them at the MXON. Matterley Basin is huge and intimidating, as you heard mentioned in the riders’ post-race interviews we posted.

The 2025 MXON is at Ironman MX in Indiana. That’s another big track with lots of huge jumps. Our riders will need to come into this one ready to go. But how?

We definitely can’t hate our players, but we can question our game.

See you at the races…