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Team France won the Motocross of Nations for the fifth year in a row this weekend at a muddy RedBud track in Michigan. The home team finished sixth. But if anyone was going to fictionalize this year's event and make a movie of it, the storyline would likely focus on Team Puerto Rico, which finished 19th.
Wait, Puerto Rico has a motocross team? Well, technically, yes, though it usually doesn't get much attention. Because Puerto Rico is a U.S. territory, the rules allow Puerto Rico to have its own MXoN team (as it does in the Olympics) but any U.S. citizen can compete on the team under the Puerto Rican flag, and a few U.S. riders often do.
This year, the team got a lot more attention. Travis Pastrana, Ryan Sipes and Kevin Windham — three guys over 30 in a sport that chews up riders and spits them out young, with Pastrana riding an unconventional two-stroke — represented Puerto Rico this year. What makes this worth mentioning is that the money from the sales of team gear, from T-shirts to hats to a cowbell, will go to a non-profit that is helping with Puerto Rico's long and slow recovery from Hurricane Maria a year ago.
Maria devastated Puerto Rico's electrical grid and much of its housing a year ago, and hundreds of thousands of people, many without jobs or homes because of the damage, have left the island since. Pastrana, whose grandfather was born in Puerto Rico and knows how to drum up publicity, put together the MXoN team to do something to help. I also have family ties to the island and I lived there for eight years. Motocross is not big there. There are only a few tracks. Probably the biggest talent to come out of the island in motocross is Tarah Geiger. So Pastrana, Windham and Sipes were not displacing any local riders by carrying the Puerto Rico flag.
Kevin Windham came out of retirement — deep retirement, from the looks of it — to replace motocross showman Ronnie Mac (who certainly did not have the license needed to compete at the MXoN, as originally planned) as the third member of the team. K-Dub did his best Forrest Gump to prepare for the pinnacle of worldwide motocross competition.
Sipes and Windham finished second and fourth in the B Final and the team squeaked into the last spot in the 20-team Main. In the Hollywood fictional version, they would have won, against all the odds, but this is real life. The best finish by any member of Team Puerto Rico in the three Mains was a 30th by Sipes.
It's real life back on the island, too, where people are struggling to recover. If Team Puerto Rico sends even a few dollars (and it seems it will be more than that, since much of the merchandise is sold out), it will be one of the best deeds the sport did this year.
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