An incredible opening ceremonies wrapped up with a bang as fireworks exploded over Ironman Raceway. Qualifying was done and dusted, and, finally, it was time to go racing! Who has the best riders in the world? We will now figure that out!
In the first moto of the day with the MXGP and MX2 riders, it was Lucas Coenen credited with the holeshot with Australia’s Jett Lawrence running in second. Chaos ensued further back as Germany’s Simon Langenfelder went down in the first turn along with Australia’s Kyle Webster. Then further bad news for Germany as Ken Roczen went down in the second turn. Roczen would get up to finish the race while Langenfelder did not. The crowd gave Roczen a huge cheer when he came around in last, acknowledging his effort. That would continue throughout the race.
Out front, J. Lawrence got around L. Coenen by the end of the first lap, Tim Gajser, Romain Febvre, Isak Gifting, and Eli Tomac followed. Kyle Webster had his work cut out for him. He remounted his #2 machine and put in a charge as his teammate Lawrence out front started to get some breathing room. Febvre went down a handful of laps into the race, handing over a few positions to Gajser and Tomac. MX2 riders Sacha Coenen, Justin Cooper, and Kay de Wolf made their way forward. And Belgium had the early lead with the brothers running second and fifth.
Tomac was gaining on Gajser but the Slovenian was not giving up the position easily. Gajser managed to hold off Tomac at the checkered flag. A loud roar followed both Tomac and Cooper around the track as you could always tell where the #4 and #5 were on the circuit. The crowd also gave Roczen a huge cheer as he continued to race along. Febvre charged forward after his crash, battling Ruben Fernandez and Kay de Wolf as his French teammate Mathis Valin made his way into the top ten. On the final lap of the race, S. Coenen ran into trouble and was credited with 20th position, which moved Cooper up to tenth. S. Coenen had a high side crash that left his bike in the way of Cooper when he came around the track and landed directly on Coenen’s #47 machine! That left S. Coenen stranded on the track without the ability to finish. He also reportedly suffered a wrist injury in the crash, which he will have to ride through to keep Belgium’s hopes alive in the overall standings. With Glenn Coldenhoff (The Netherlands) DNSing after a big crash yesterday in his qualifying race, this is a tough blow for Beglium, one of the other top favorites this weekend. Heading into the second set of motos USA and France are tied with 14 points and Australia has 16.