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Jason Thomas
A pulp MX Network production. A cerebral and experienced look into the racing action from the week that was. This is Industry Seating with Jason Thomas. Presented by Pirelli Tires, Guts Racing, Plum Creek Funding, Pro Blow Wash Works, Connection, Bass Foundry, TL Speed Shop Concept, COD Design Company, Grandstone Boots and Fly Racing. Welcome to the Industry Seating podcast. My name is Jason Thomas. It is going to be Thursday when you hear this in the usa it's Thursday morning, but overnight in the us I'm in the UK obviously for the motocross nations and that's what this podcast is going to cover. Today we're going to do a little preview action, kind of how I see things going into what I consider the biggest race of the year, which is motocross nations, how the team stack up, what to watch for, and just going to give you a lay of the land before we jump right into it. Let's thank the sponsors. Piro Tires, Guts Racing, Plum Creek Funding, Concept Coatings Design Co. Works Connection, Pro Glow Wash, TL Speed Shop, Grant Stone Boots and thank you to Fly Racing. As always, without them I wouldn't be at the Motorcross Nation. So thank you to everybody involved. I'll give you some promo codes and more information on those sponsors a little bit later in the podcast. But how I have this structured and this podcast a little different. You know, we typically do the power rankings and kind of talk about both classes and what happened to prior race, what's going to happen next race, all those things. This is going to be a little different because the race is different and we don't have a race to cover coming off this. Not necessarily. Anyway, I don't really want to talk about the prior mxgp. It's done and dusted. But I have these teams in tiers, okay? And the tiers are built out as most likely or least likely to win and on. In most of these teams, excuse me, most of these teams are incapable of winning. And I don't mean that in a derogatory sense. It's just I've been to this race enough, I've watched enough racing in my life. I know the, the way, you know, kind of the state of these riders and the likelihoods and all those things, and I feel very qualified to give that directive and opinion is some of these teams winning is not possible, okay? That doesn't mean they can't do well. That doesn't mean they can't have individually strong performances in each classes and those things, but they either have a huge liability or they don't have a superstar that can get them individual race wins or something. That's just how this race works. You need to have certain prerequisites to be in the fight to win. Okay? So if you're a fan of one of these countries or riders or don't take offense, that's not what it's about. It's about giving you my best predictions and insight as to what I think is going to happen, how I think this day is going to go. And I'm trying to be realistic. I'm not trying to be sensational or headline grabbing or clickbaity or. I don't care about any of that. That's not my style. I want to be accurate, always. Like, if you hear me saying something on television or in a podcast or writing something, whatever, I'm not trying to sell you on it. I'm trying to be as accurate, correct and insightful. I'm trying to think of the right word, give you like a kind of a clear picture of what's going to happen. Just because of all the knowledge I've gained over watching this sport for multi decades. Right. Like, I, I'm not trying to give myself credit here. I just, if I'm an expert in anything in this world, it is this stuff because I study it all the time. So I can kind of see things happening in slow motion and see things unfolding, which I'm sure many of you can too. But this is the platform I've given and this is kind of where I can really lean into things. And if it improves your quality of watching, it's like, oh, man, I, you know, maybe Jason said to watch for this unfolding in a certain way and this would be a pivotal development or a key facet of the race. If it goes one of two ways, you're going to see directionally things unfold these way. That's, that's what I'm trying to accomplish. Just to kind of put you in my mind's eye of how I see this is if I can improve your quality of entertainment by giving you more insight, then, then I'm doing exactly what I'll set out to do. Okay, without further ado, let's jump into this. So there are three ish tiers, not to give too much away, three ish tiers. The first tier is these are teams that I do not believe can win, but they have quality riders and they could, they should be inside the top 10. Maybe they won't because there's, there's more than 10 teams here, but they have talent on their teams. And should be mentioned. And the first of those is the Swiss team. And the reason most of these teams I, I fashion them in a way where I don't think they can win is simply because they either don't have the superstar that can go out and win the race on his own merits or they have a rider that is a huge liability and they're going to have to use one of his scores at minimum one. And that's assuming one of their really good guys doesn't have a big problem. That is where, that's where they really lose out. That's, you know, if they have to put like a 25, like they have to use like a 25th place and that, that has to go on the board, that'll kill you. Right? Like that. That is a death knell to a good day. And a lot of the time for these teams they have to use two of those. So you get like 40 or 50 points out of two scores. It's over. It's over for you. You know, as far as like a being a real contender, you're just out of it in that moment. So the Swiss team is first. Their team is made up of Jeremy Sewer who is a very worthy rider. Like he's podium level MXGP rider so he can get quality scores. Arnetonis who is, he was a former factory rider. He's kind of in the background now. I think he races more domestic championships. He's not on the MXGP scene currently. Side note, his sister Cynthia is married to Hunter Lawrence. That's. I don't know, some of you probably know that, some of you don't. That's, you know, there and, and that's Hunter's MXGP tie in where used to, they used to live in Europe, blah blah, blah. Cynthia lives in the US with Hunter and has for a long time. But anyway, Arnotonis, you'll probably remember that name. He was on pro Circuit Kawasaki 10 years ago or so and he was on factory Yamaha in Europe for a long time. Hero in Switzerland. But his relevance in MXGP has long since surpassed. And that's where you start to, to lose out in that top tier performance. And then the last rider is Valentin Guillot and Guillot still is MXGP. He could be top 10 at times in MXGP but he also is very inconsistent at times. So you don't really know. And that's why I have him. Tier 3 that can't win, they're not going to have quality enough scores over three guys to win. But top 10 absolutely possible. The second team is Slovenia and this is the prototypical situation where you're going to run into and I'm going to cover more of this. You have two quality guys, one super quality. The second rider is solid and then the third rider, you don't really know what you're going to get. Like he's, he would never make any other motocross nations team in the top. Like he, he's basically the best of the rest and you just have to kind of go with your best guy. And his name, let me, I have to even look it up because I'm not familiar with him, is Yaka Peklaj. I don't even know how to pronounce it. So I, I don't. I'm not familiar with him at all, which kind of tells you everything you need to know. Okay, so what's going to happen for Slovenia is they should make the A final because as long as Tim has a good ride and Jan poncer is their second rider, he's solid. He should be top 10 in his class. He's a top 15 MXGP guy. So that's two pretty solid guys. That should be enough to get them into the A final pretty easily. But then that third rider score is what's going to kill them. He's going to put up a 25 or 30 or worse in their moto and their individual motto and they're going to be out of it. So you're going to see Tim Geisser running around at the front. He's a world champion. Poncer should have a decent day and then that third score will kill them. So that's going to be a recurring theme and I'll keep coming back to that. The next team on the tier 3 list is Canada. And we all know, you know, Canada's the top hat of America. You know, we're all familiar with them. Of course, Steve Mathis was, will be around them all weekend long and he knows these guys really well. Now for Canada, the interesting thing is on paper they have a really talented team. Jess Pettis, Kevin Benoit and Dylan Wright are all super legit guys. Dylan Wright has raced MXGP, he's been top 10 in MXGP. Now he's not on his best form. He's not on the form he was two or three years ago where he was getting top tens in mxgp. But Jess Pettis has gotten a lot better and Kevin Benoit is on the best form he's been on. I mean, he's old, right? Like he, he was racing when I was Racing. But the question will be for them is, can they bring their Canadian form to England? That's always been the problem, right? Like, and I know this from racing in Canada, and anybody who's raced against them could tell you the same thing is they have a problem bringing their best stuff outside of Canada. They drop down to the US if they go to the motocross nations, they go to mxgp. That has been always their difficulty. And I don't know what it is. I don't know if it's just they're so comfortable in their own homeland or they're so used to the tracks that they've ridden year after year that they have raised their game on those specific tracks and they can't take that anywhere else. Like, it's not that, you know, they don't travel well. Basically, if I was like, if this was like an NFL team, you would just say, yeah, they don't play away games well. That's kind of how I feel about Canada. And Dylan Wright can do it, but can't. Dylan Wright has crashed, like, every single time he's gone to this event. Last year was an absolute disaster in France. I mean, a mess, chaos, horrible weekend for Team Canada, right? So they're going to be looking for redemption from that. They're well organized, they're well funded, they're doing all the right things. They have staff and accommodations, and they're good bikes, and they have everything in place to do well here. So I'm not going to pretend to know how it's going to go. It could go fairly well. If you told me they got like, ninth overall, I'd be like, yeah, I can see that. With the talent they have on their team, I can see that. But if you also told me that it completely came apart again, I wouldn't have a logical reason to explain it other than that seems to happen to them. So it's one of those teams where you want to watch. It'll be interesting. They can't win. That's not going to happen. And please take. When I say they can't win, take that in context. Like, this is not me trying to say something negatively. I'm not. I'm being realistic. Right. And you're going to find realism all the way through this, this podcast, in the. In this analysis. I don't. I don't care who wins, truly. Like, I want the USA to win, but, like, if Canada gets third versus Australia getting third versus Slovenia getting third versus Spain, I don't care. I really don't. I'm trying to give you the most real talk I can give you about these teams. So in my mind, Canada is not in the running to win the race. And, you know, like, remember Steve Mathis gotten in all this controversy when he said Chris Blows couldn't win. Okay. He wasn't trying to take shots at Chris Blows. He was trying to be realistic. Right. And there's such a big difference there. People get all up in arms and all worked up. Steve has done so much. He's helped Chris Blows. He's given him literally written Chris Blows checks to go racing before. You think he wants to take a shot at him. Of course he doesn't. So excuse me, I'm congested. That stuff drives me crazy because it's so far from the realm of what's intended and what's in Steve's heart and what's in mind. Like, I don't. I will probably be hanging out with Team Canada at times this weekend. We sponsor Jess Pettis and Kevin Benoit through Fly Racing. They are Fly Racing, KTM Canada athletes. Okay. So it's not view. It should not be viewed negatively. It's just I'm trying to be as genuine as possible here. The last team I have in tier three is Estonia and they're going to have some names on here that, you know, you may not be like you. How the hell is Estonia on here? Well, Estonia has names you're going to be familiar with. Maybe you've heard of him, maybe not. He's a legend in Estonia family. Second generation racer. I know you've heard of Harry Kulas if you watch motocross in the US because we've done features on him, we've covered him SMX and outdoors. He is also. He's half finished, half Estonian, but he races for the Estonian team. And then their third rider is Gert Crestinoff, who did race pro motocross races this summer. You may be less familiar with him, but he is, he's a, he's a veteran of MX2 and MXGP, so he's been around a long time. They have three solid and I apologize for my congestion. They have three solid riders and they know how to approach. MXGP tracks, these type of events. So don't expect fireworks from them, but expect solid results. Right, because they're going to be somewhere in the top 12 every time and that over those scores can get, can. They can climb the ranks. They throw in a good moto or two and they can really climb the ranks. So this is a team where I think they, they have A shot at being like, 7, 8, 9, 10. And you're not going to be expecting to be like, how the hell are they in there? It's going to be through consistency and they don't have a really weak third guy. That's the thing, they don't. They're not going to be putting 20 sevens and 20 twos on the board. And that, that gives you a lot of cushion to have a really respectable overall result. Okay, moving into Tier two and I'm speeding through a little bit of these because I don't want this podcast to take forever going into Tier two. First team up is the home country, the uk United Kingdom, which is team. It's listed as Team gb. Okay. Great Britain, and that team consists of Tommy Searle, Max Anstey and Conrad Muse. Now, you're going to be familiar with Max Anstey. If you've been around for more than five minutes, you are familiar with Tommy Searle because he used to race in the US and he's been around forever. The last name you may not be as familiar with if you're a USA regular is Conrad Muse. And I am super familiar because we've sponsored Conrad Muse for a long time. He was runner up to in the British Championships this year to, to Jeffrey Hurlings. And he was a former prodigy like KTM had high hopes for Conrad Muse to go be an MXGP star. Now, he kind of didn't live up to that, but the talent is there. This is a kid that you get him a whole shot on Saturday or Sunday, he knows what to do with it. This kid can absolutely rip. And he's probably 25 now. 24, 25. Don't be surprised if there's some Conrad Muse hype this weekend. Lap times, qualifying race. Because he has that ability to, like, if he passes Tomac and you're like, what in the world? Like, don't let that catch you out because he is capable of something like that. I'm telling you on the front end on Thursday that Conrad Muse can do something like that. Now, Anstey, we all know he won both motos here in 2017. He. We all know how capable Max Anstey is. You're already going to know what he's capable of. And then Tommy Sorrow is the wild card. We don't know. He's. He's way past his prime. He does ride a lot. He wasn't thrilled about being picked for this event because he's not in his, you know, he doesn't want to let the team down and he's not 100 prepared, but he got picked anyway. So he's going racing. We just, I just don't know necessarily what he's going to bring for 70 minutes on, you know, the highest pressure stage at your home country that you could ask for. So I don't know what we're going to get from Tommy Searle. I don't think he knows what we're going to get from Tommy Searle. Next team up is Spain and this is that prototypical. Two solid guys, one third guy. That's going to be a struggle. And this was the same thing that happened, happened last year. So it's Jorge Prado, Ruben Fernandez and Oriole Oliver. Okay, Prada, we already know back to back MXGP world champ. He's going to be in the front all day. Does he win? I don't know. Can he beat Jet? I don't know. He's going to be at the front though. Okay. He's going to hold shot. He's going to be running around up front if he wins, both motos will not shock anyone, but he's going to get them great scores. Ruben Fernandez is solid, okay? He crashed last year in France. That really hurt them. He was running up front and crashed. That hurts our score. But he is a top five guy in his class for sure. Okay, well, he could crash. He is a little wild, but he's, he is absolutely capable of helping Team Spain get on the podium. The problem is Oreo Oliver and I don't mean that like he's a bad person or you know, like always qualify these statements, please. The problem is he's probably going to be like 20th in his Moto. Okay? He is a 10 to 12 place, maybe 10 to 15 MX2 rider. Okay, so now you put MX2 into a double class with MXGP or MX3 or the open class, however you want to phrase it. Now you're talking about him running around 19 to 30, you know, maybe, maybe 19 to 25. That's, that's a tough score and you're going to have to use at least one of those. Assuming Prado and Fernandez have two good motos, you're going to have to use one of those. So now whatever solid score you have at a 22 to it, right, that, that is the challenge of, for so many of these teams is not having three world class capable guys. And I shouldn't say Oliver is not world class. He is a point scoring MX2 world championship rider. I'm just saying for this event to be in the, the Running for the podium. He is their only liability and he will get better. He's really young. Okay, so keep that in mind when we're talking about him or David Braceres, who they, whoever they decide to pick. Moving forward in three years from now, he could be a top five MX2 guy and really help them. Like he could be the one that propels them moving forward. It's just he's not there quite yet and that puts them in a precarious position. Next team up and this one, this was a team that would have been, I think in a different tier had things gone differently. But they've had to put pieces into place at the last second. And there was about an hour on Sunday afternoon leaving Spain where they weren't going racing at Motocross nations because Sasha Kunin couldn't race. Lucas Kunin didn't want to drop back down to Max 2 and they just were done. Like team was, team was out. And remember, Liam Everett started this whole domino effect by injuring, getting injured in China. He certainly can't race. So it's been pure chaos. Almost as bad as the USA for, for the Belgium team. Now they, they did pull it together at the last second and they have Lucas Koonin staying on the mix. 2 Brett Van Donick and Jago Geertz. And it's not a terrible team on paper. Now, Brit Van Donick is probably the one you're going to be the least familiar with. He doesn't have the credentials as the other two, but he is a solid MXGP rider and has been for a very long time. Just because you're not familiar with him doesn't mean he's not a great rider. And I want to make sure that's very clear. Now, can Bandon it go get top five both motos in his class? Probably not, but he can be top 10 in his class for sure. And he is very experienced. He's raced this racetrack several times, so he's going to be fine. He is not a gigantic liability for Team Belgium. He is going to be give them a respectable score and he won't be the reason that they just fall apart. Like anything can happen. Crashes, bike breaks. But I'm saying just on paper, performance, he should be okay. Now, he's not Sasha Koonin or William Evers. Those guys in their respective classes could be top five, but he's not going to kill them, right. They're not having to go off the grid and find a guy who doesn't even race him. XGP has no business at this event, blah, blah, blah. That's not what's happening here. Even though you may not know the name very well, they are firmly in Tier three. But they could surprise like Lucas Koonin could be top three in a Moto even on an MX2 bike. That's certainly possible for him. You know the starts will be critical when you're racing against 450s, there's no doubt about that. But they have some star power on their team, no question. And Remember Iago Geerts 2022 when he made his MXGP debut for Belgium on a 450? He was killing it. He was. He, that kid is, he is so capable. He, it's, it's a travesty that he did not win an MX2 world championship. Honestly it is. But yeah, he couldn't stay healthy. So Tom Vi was the, the benefactor of, of those, those championship runs. Next team up in Tier 2 is Germany and this team has a chance. They really do. You have Ken Rockson who is not 100 healthy. That hurts a little bit but he always steps up for this race. You have Simone Langenfelder who is an MX2 World Championship contender, podium guy so he can get the job done in MX2 for sure. And then you have Max Nagel who is I think in his 18th year of motocross nations. He's way past his prime but he is the ADAC champion in Germany. He like, he knows what to do in these races. Like he's still racing and practicing and on form. He's just. Yeah, he's probably 10 years past his best years. So we don't know how does that stack up on mxgp because he's, he can go when he can beat Tixie A and all these guys in adac, but I don't know what that looks like in the UK on Sunday. No one really does, but they are a little bit of a wild card team and we're just going to have to kind of find out but I think they're fairly in Tier three but they're on the upper echelon of team or tier three? The final. The final tier. No, this is Tier two. I apologize. The final Tier two team and Germany is in Tier two is Italy and they had a last minute change. Matia Guadagnini had a big crash in Spain and he is out. They subbed in Alberto Ferrato which is not a downgrade, it's probably sideways, maybe an upgrade to be honest. Verado was just hurt and he's back and he on hard pack that guy can get it done. So I don't view that last minute switch as anything, but at minimum sideways. Truly. I think it may, I think Ferrado is probably, especially the way he's riding right now, it's probably a move higher. So I hate to see Guadagnini get hurt, but I don't think Team Italy suffered at all from this. Then you have reigning. Well, he was reigning MX2 world champion Andrea Adamo as the MX2 rider and then Andrea Bonacoursi is the other. And I'm not sure if he's MXGP or MX Open. They had the, you know, the team all switched around the last second there. But Bonacours, he's in his first year of mxgp and he's way ahead of schedule. He's been a top 10 guy, but he's. The only reason he's on an MXGP bike right now is because he's huge. He is a very large person. And Yamaha was in dire straits with their MXGP program. Geertz was hurt. Basically everybody they have on a Yamaha was hurt. Maxime Renault was out. They needed someone to step up and ride the 450 and Bonacorsi was the most eligible candidate because of size, honestly. And he wasn't in the MX2 title fight, so they moved him up and he's been, you know, Paul Malone and I were talking about it last weekend. He's been way better than everybody expected. So great job from Bonacours. He used to be a fly racing rider when he was on HUT and Matal EMX team. And so yeah, I follow him pretty closely, but I think they have a decent chance of being around 5, 6, 7. They're not going to blow you away with individual results, but they can get five solid scores. And that's kind of what I, you know, when I talk about some of these teams that they're not going to win their class, but they can get decent results on the day, which will add up to a solid score at the end of Sunday afternoon. That's where I think Italy can fall into this. Before we jump into the rest of these, talk about our sponsors a little bit and I know this is all of your favorite part of the podcast, but it's necessary. Pirelli Tires will have most of the field this weekend. They're incredibly popular in Europe and yeah, this is kind of their prime time MX motocross nations, mxgp. They won another world championship with Jorge Prado. Shocking, I know. So thank you to Pirelli Tires. Guts racing seat covers for power Sports Surrons. 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Okay, back to your regularly scheduled programming. Thank you to listening to the sponsors. So this is going to be, I think, my most controversial tier. And this is. I have it. I have it as tier 1.25. And this is Team USA. They're the only team in this tier. And I know I'm going to make some People angry and people shaking their head that I don't have them in tier one, but our lineup is, is not the problem. Eli Tomac, Cooper Webb and Aaron Plessinger. It's not like a B team, that's for damn sure. Right, but there are extenuating circumstances with the team that make me nervous. Okay. One, Cooper Web hasn't raced a 250 in seven years. Right? That's a little concerning. Like I don't know how that's going to go. He's not even 100%. Like it's not like he was winning SMX races and then he's going to come in, you know, like a house on fire onto the 250 and bring all that momentum. That's not what's happening. Like he was hurt. He re injured his thumb at Unadilla, which was already hurt from Supercross. Then he raced smx. It didn't go all that well. He got better. To be fair, he did get better as it went on, but he's not 100% right now. He's not as fit as he wants to be. I think he, you know, if we're looking at where he wants to be in like January, February, like leanness, fit wise, momentum, speed, all those things, he's not there right now. Doesn't mean he's not going to bring his best stuff. The guy is a true gamer. But that's a question mark, right? We don't know what's going to happen there. And to be in tier one, I don't think you can have significant question marks on your team. And I, I'm a big Cooper Webb fan, but it's on a bike he has not raced and he's not 100%. So I don't know. You know, that's, that's one question mark. Two, Aaron Plessinger's shoulder is not 100%. You know, he's fighting through an injury. He's going to be better than he was. But in smx, like he wasn't riding during the week, he was doing therapy all week long just to be able to race on the weekends. He did practice before Motocross nation so that's a positive sign. But he could, he could re injure it, he could aggravate it, all those things. And then on top of that, like last year wasn't like a Motocross nation's winning performance. Right. He had one good moto and one really bad moto. So what does that look like? I don't know. That's a question Mark, now, he should be fine. If you told me he's top five or top seven in both motos, that wouldn't surprise me at all. You know, I know Aaron Plessinger is an incredibly talented rider, but on this stage, the racing is different and he has not been a breakout performer in this race through two attempts so far. So we'll see. I'm not pessimistic at all for ap. I'm a huge fan of ap. I'm trying to be fair and realistic about what happens this particular weekend and we just simply don't know the answer to that. So injury track, he hasn't ridden. Let's see how it goes. Third rider, Eli Tomac. Now, Eli's the one I have the least questions about. He's on form, he's back to his best self. He's raced this race a bunch of times and he always kind of steps up. The results haven't always come. He's crashed and things. But his level of performance, like what the A game he brings, I'm not, I'm not worried about that. If you get him a good start on Sunday, he's going to run around the front. I don't know if he'll win the moto, but he's going to run around top three, top four, top five with a start. I'm not concerned with that. I know what we're getting. He's a known quantity, Eli Tomac is. So I wouldn't stress so badly about that part with Eli Tomac. Now, the final thing I'll say with Team usa, none of these riders have ever ridden this racetrack. That is a, that's a problem in my mind because all the other teams they've written, except for Hunter has raced here. Jet has. I don't know if Jet has. Kyle Webster definitely is not okay. But all the other teams, they've written here a ton. All the other teams we have to be concerned with as Team usa, they've written here a lot. And they know the track, they know the lines, they know how it's going to shape up, they know the bike settings, they know all those things right matter. In a one weekend scenario, coming into a track where you, you know everything that's going to happen before it even happens. You know how if it rains, you know what it's going to do. You know if it's dry, you know what it's going to do, you know where, how the start works, you know where to wind up, you know how the first turn kind of shapes up the breaking points. All those things matter this weekend. And that is a. That's a. I would say a negative for Team usa. And I'm trying to think of the right word is a liability. Is it. It's just a detractor from their chance of success in the end. It doesn't mean they can't overcome it. It doesn't mean that they're destined for failure because of it. It's just, if you're looking at, is it neutral, is it positive as a negative has to be a negative. When you're the least familiar with a racetrack on all levels, that has to be viewed as a negative. End of story. So I'm. Listen, I'm going to be wearing red, white and blue. I'm going to be cheering for them. You all know how patriotic I am and how much you know. I've been coming to this race every year since 2013. I even came during COVID I was the only one that came during COVID to be honest with you. And that's why I get to be in the booth, I believe is why, is because I've committed to coming rain or shine or Covid or zombie apocalypse or whatever may happen. I'm still coming to this event. And, yeah, I'm truly blessed to be able to be in the booth and. And on this stage. I know how lucky I am to do that, but I still cheer for Team usa. I have to be objective. But you all know that. You all know how much of a Team USA supporter I am. I just think it's going to be a. A tough setup and I don't know how it goes. I'll be screaming like crazy when I'm not on the bike for our team, but I'm unsure of how this is going to go. Okay. You may hate that. You may think they should be your Tier one. I get it. I truly get it. And I thought long and hard about, do I just put them in Tier one or not? And I don't. I don't think that I should. And maybe I'm wrong. I'm happy to be wrong. Like, no problem. If they crush it this weekend, I will be the first one to say, I got this wrong. I underestimated them, and I will have. I have egg on my face. No problem. I'm cool with that. But Tier one, how? I have it. The first and the three tier one teams are France, Australia and the Netherlands. Okay. And we'll start with the French team. And these guys are always strong. They always bring it. And they're going to again. It's Roman Febra, Tom Vial and Maxime Renault. Now they're not without questions this year though. This is not the best French team that they've ever had it. I would say it's not as strong as their team last year for a couple of reasons. February is not as good as he's been. He has kind of been a touch off all year. He's been injured, he's, he's riding okay, but he's not going out and winning MXGP rounds right now. That is a little bit of a detraction from their team. Right. Take some points away. Tom Vial is though. Tom Via will be good. He's ridden this track a million times. He will be fine. I'm not worried about Tom B on the next two at all. Then you have Maxime Renault. Same story as February. Not on his best form. He's been injured, he's not putting in his best results. So what do we get now? The upside for them is they ride hard pack very well. All three of them are hard pack specialists. That shouldn't shock you coming from France, but on a track like this, assuming it's not a full on quagmire on Sunday, they'll be really good at this racetrack. That is a coup for them. The, the conditions and the dirt composition is a coup for Team France. They could win and to be in Tier one, I think you have to be able to win. That's, that's the qualifying factor is they are, they would be the favorites in Vegas, these three teams. Now the second one is Australia and this one's a little, I think it might be even controversial to be in Tier one, but when you have Jet and Hunter on your team, I don't know that it can be especially Jet because I think Jet will be like, 1, 2, 2, 1, 3, 1, 1, 3. He's gonna have that type of day. He's just too good, right? If he crashes, excuse me, if his bike breaks, all bets are off. We all know that that's how racing goes, so I don't even count that because you sure already know that. But on a neutral playing field, a typical day, Jet is going to be at the front all day long. That's just who he is. So he's going to get them a great score. Jet, or, excuse me, Hunter is on his best form that he's ever been on right now. And remember how good he was in 2017 here when it was dry, he beat Zach Osborne. I don't remember how the overall went, but they battled it out and he was really good here. End of story. Okay, so Hunter's going to be good here this weekend. Again, start should be good. That'll be an underlying tone is how did the USA regulars for pro motocross guys versus the MXGP guys, how does the start pan out there? I think the MXGP guys have a little bit of an edge on the start, but we shall see. But I still think Hunter and Jet will get great starts. They will be up front. They will score probably top three in each of their individual classes, top five for sure, which will give them great scores overall. And then the question, the only real question is Kyle Webster. And it's not that Kyle's a liability. It's more of just can he harness his best stuff and bring it here? Now, we saw him able to do that at Red Bud in Southwick. Like he's able to travel with that form. And that was the thing when I talked about Canada not being able to travel. Well, Kyle Webster's already proven that he can. Now he's going to have another test and he's going to have to do it on a 250. He is going to have a factory bike. That will certainly help a lot, but we just don't know what that looks like on a 250 on this stage. I. No one. No one does. There's no way you can tell me. You. You can, because he hasn't been racing a250. He's never raced matterly. He's never raced a factory Honda, he's never raced for team Team Australia. So we don't know any of those things. That. That's where there's no one that can tell you how it's going to go because it's impossible. So just watch out to see, that's the variable I'll show it can win. If. If Webster brings his best stuff, this team can win. The Netherlands is the final team and this isn't the best team they've ever had, but it is a really, really strong team. And the reason I say it's not the best team they've ever had is simply because the Netherlands, excuse me, Glenn Coldenhoff on the Team Netherlands is not on his best form. You know, he used to be factory Yamaha. He's won that. He was factory KTM and factory Yamaha. He's won this race several times. He has been the best rider at this race more than once. Okay, so if he shows up and brings his best stuff, it wouldn't shock me. But it's not in the sand that's one thing, but it might be muddy on Sunday. It is scheduled to rain some on Sunday, so maybe that brings his best form back to the forefront. Jeffrey Hurlings, you know what you're getting. Kaida Wolf, you know what you're getting. He's the MX2 world champion. Jeffrey Hurlings is one of the most decorated racers in the history of mxgp. Coldenhoff is my question. If it's raining on Sunday, I put the Netherlands at the top. I do. I put them as the favorite. If it's raining on Sunday. Okay, so that's where I come down on it. Those are Tier one. All three can win. And I laid out the questions as to how they get there. But these teams are going to be lights out. They're, they are the top. Team USA is just a touch off because they've never been here before and they, they have all the chaos around. Tomac coming in at the last second. Webb riding in 250 at the last second. AP with a bum shoulder. I can't put them in Tier one because of those, those liabilities and question marks and just all the, all of the uncertainty and the fluidity of that team. I can't of my sound mind, put them in Tier one. And maybe I'm wrong. I understand that. I'm not trying to upset anyone. It almost upsets me that I have to do that. But this is how I see it. This is the best layout I can give you. I will do a recap, of course, after the race of, of motocross. The nations tell you how it went, where, what I got right, what I got wrong. And I, and I will encompass all of these tears and thoughts and it'll be interesting to see how silly I look on some things and maybe I got a few things right too, but that's it. I hope you enjoyed it. And yeah, we will talk to you shortly after this race.