Obviously one of the biggest talking points from the 2018 Monster Energy Motocross of Nations has been the selection of Team Puerto Rico. Travis Pastrana, Ronnie Mac and Ryan Sipes. Three 30 plus people, one a cartoon character, and all not racing professionally at the moment.

We decided to ask FIM what they think of the concept, and if its got any chance of happening. We gave Tony Skillington, the FIM Motocross commission president a call, as he is preparing to oversee the World Junior championships in Australia.

Skillington gave us the answers we wanted, even informing us that Team Puerto Rico have in fact not yet sent in an entry for the MXoN. He also gave us an insight into a possible format change for the MXoN in the near future.

MXlarge: So what is the opinion of yourself about this current situation with Puerto Rico selecting Ronnie Mac, Travis Pastrana and Ryan Sipes for the 2018 Monster Energy Motocross of Nations.

Skillington: There has been different stories running around, and I know a story coming from Budds Creek (Skillington meant Unadilla) with there was some inappropriate situation between Ronnie Mac and a person at the event. I think everyone from the AMA and Davey Coombs could interrupt our biggest event of the year. I think this has a place in Nitro Circus, but it doesn’t have a place with us. We would not accept an alias from somebody and if there was somebody who is a suspect character, then we wouldn’t accept this.

MXlarge: There is also talk that Kevin Windham might take over from Jimmy Mac.

Skillington: I have heard that, but Geoff, we still haven’t received an entry from Puerto Rico. I think it’s a fantastic idea, the cause, but the way they went about this, wasn’t the best way to put it across. We try and sell motocross as a family sport and some of what is going on, it isn’t good. We want to dust to settle and find out about these misconducts that happened at Budds Creek, and we don’t have an entry from Puerto Rico.

MXlarge: But a team of Sipes, Pastrana and Windham would be acceptable?

Skillington: I don’t see any reason not to accept them.

MXlarge: I mean those guys are old, but they are still probably faster than a lot of the smaller nation riders?

Skillington: Yes, but this is the discussion we are often having, that we are mixing phenomenally fast riders with phenomenally slow riders, and this is a discussion we need to have in the future, about the Nations from tomorrow, next year or whatever. We saw what happened with the Japanese guy at Maggiora (with Jason Anderson) and I think in the future it could be a very different format. We are getting to a stage that we need to change and that is something that I really fear, is that the current format could affect somebodies’ career.

MXLarge: Is this something that you are already talking about within FIM, the changing of the format?

Skillington: It is up for discussion, so we wait until we get past the election of the FIM president in December and of course Wolfgang (Srb) has thrown his hat into the ring, and that of others.  From now until the end of the year, we don’t make any changes, because it is the end of a political time, and we don’t want to put things through if we don’t know we have support for these things, but a change to the format of the des Nations is one thing we need to consider.

MXlarge: It has often been talked about having a Ryder Cup type of format, and of course this isn’t possible, because you can’t just have USA vs Europe, we also need countries like Australia involved, or South Africa, but what about something like that?

Skillington: You mean like Trans-AMA?

MXlarge: No, USA vs Europe vs Rest of the World, or is that too much of a change for the des Nations?

Skillington: Well, it’s the first time I have heard such a thing, and I need to get my head around it and it isn’t on my radar, and I can’t pull apart the wisdom of Geoff Meyer. I don’t know if it’s a great idea, or a bad idea, I don’t know. It could have legs down the road, but I don’t know.