Pre-Season

With a brilliant winter so far and the thought of heading to Qatar and Thailand for the first two rounds of the FIM World Motocross Championships in around six weeks time gets me pretty excited.

I have to admit I am probably more enthusiastic about this new season than I have been for some time, what with the new Husqvarna team being put on display at Qatar, and two Aussies (Luke Styke and Todd Waters) in the MXGP and MX2 classes. Not to mention the chance to see the great Antonio Cairoli go for this 8th World Motocross Championship and can Jeffrey Herlings join Gaston Rahier, Harry Everts and Alessio Chiodi who have all won three MX2 (125cc) World Championships in a row.

The depression of a freezing winter in Europe hasn’t been around this year, as we enjoy temperatures of around 10 degrees on a 
regular basis. In fact it has even been 15 degrees on some days in the North of Europe and today in Holland is just beautiful, with sunshine and around the 12 degree mark. But enough for the weather forecast, it’s Motocross everyone wants to talk about.
The European pre-season begins in just three weeks, down on the beautiful Island of Sardinia. 

On the second of February at the Riola Sardo in Sardinia many of the leading GP riders will race the Italian Motocross Championships. Under what is usually good weather this sand race will be the perfect start to the European motocross season. 
A week later in Noto, Sicily, it’s round two of the Italian Championship and again a major amount of GP riders have signed up, then 
finally a week later on February 16, there are two races on the same weekend as GP riders are split between Montevarchi in the north of Italy and Valence in the centre of France put together two major International races. After that many of the GP riders head to Hawkstone Park for the last of the major International Motocross races on February 23.

With Hawkstone Park out of the way every MXGP and MX2 rider will board a flight to Doha, Qatar, for what will be another exciting FIM World Motocross Championship opener. The Grand Prix of Qatar was a brilliant event in 2013 and no doubt with more experience this year will be even better.

Photo: Jeffrey Herlings - Ray Archer image