By Danny Brault

Photos: Allison Kennedy

Canadians were both surprised and excited when it was announced last year that we would be sending a team over to the Motocross des Nations in Lierop, Netherlands. This summer, rumours started circulating that Canada would again attend the MXDN, but it wasn’t until after Walton that the official word was released from Carl Bastedo—Canada is going to Ernee, France for the 2005 Motocross des Nations!

    This year’s team will be all blue, with Yamaha’s Blair Morgan, Doug DeHaan and Simon Homans making the trip to France. All three riders have international experience, and will surely give it their all to do Canada proud.

    We caught up with the unofficial team captain, Blair Morgan, to see what his thoughts are on this year’s MXDN effort.

RXC: Blair, what have you been up to lately?

Oh, actually not too much. I’m kind of hurting from my crash at Walton, still.

Yeah, what happened there?

I got a concussion and I hurt my shoulder. I’m actually going to physio for my shoulder, so hopefully it will be okay for the des Nations.

Were you knocked out from the crash?

I don’t know, [laughs] I don’t remember too much from the whole thing. I was slow to get up, but I don’t know. I don’t think I was knocked out, but I rang my bell big time.

I know Carl Bastedo has been the biggest supporter and a key reason for Canada fielding an MXDN team last year and for this year, but who else has been helping put together the team?

I’m not too sure, Carl is kind of the main guy. I think Yamaha is helping him out, because of all the Yamaha riders on the team.

Last year it seemed the announcement of the team was much earlier and this year it was a last minute decision.

Yeah I didn’t even know we were going until the Walton weekend. I thought we weren’t going, then all of sudden Carl was saying that we were.

You must be pumped to go over to Europe again this year and represent Canada.

Oh yeah, yeah. We had a good time last year. It was really good, maybe because of how much support we had. We had a truck to run out of and everything. I don’t know about this year. Even if it is a bit of a … gongshow [laughs], it will probably still be fun just hanging out there.

You did well at the race last year.

Yeah I felt really good there and it went good, for me. In the second moto I got fatigued a bit because we went back-to-back. But no ... I felt good, the first moto went good for me and the second moto wasn’t too bad I guess.

Didn’t you pass JSR in a moto?

Yeah the second moto was going really good for me. JSR holeshot, but then I caught him and passed him. I was a few positions ahead of him and then I just wanted to keep going towards the front, but I just kind of fell back a bit and fell down. I ended up 16^th or something and he was 14^th I think.

I heard Blackfoot wasn’t too interested in returning to the MXDN again this year. Do you have any ideas why they wouldn’t want to go back?

I think it was because last year, we shipped the bikes over by air and they got there fast. But on the way back, they shipped them by sea, and they didn’t get their bikes back in time for the arenacrosses and stuff and they had to build new bikes. I think they were upset about that. I just, I don’t know, obviously we’re not making any money doing this race, but you have to do it for the love of the sport a bit too.

Okay, thanks Blair. Get that shoulder rested up and ready for the des nations.

Okay, see ya later.