The 2024 season has very much mirrored the 2021 season, with a three-way battle for the MXGP championship and also brilliant young riders showing their improvement in the MX2 class. We have seen a huge diversity in countries, tracks and of course, the weather has played a huge part in this years Grand Prix championship.

As always, we made the call to Infront Moto Racing President Giuseppe Luongo and asked him a bunch of questions about the calendar for 2025, the fly-away events, the troubles of trying to organize the fly-away rounds, as governments change and elections sometimes play a part in whether we are invited back. Of course, in China, we had to deal with a typhoon and for sure, the different cultures make it a challenge to get an event across the line.

The future Motocross of Nations events will be officially announced after this years Nations and as has been the case in recent times, America will be a major part of that announcement (please motocross gods, allow us to go to Washougal one year).

Anyway, below is our chat with the boss of World motocross and I hope you enjoy it.

MXlarge: 2024 is nearly behind us and once again, we had a really exciting season, similar to 2021, but in my opinion, even better. The fly-away races were amazing and the racing also. Can you give me your opinion of the year, including talking about the four fly-away races?

Luongo: It has been an amazing season, and everything will be played out at the last event.Prado, Gajser and Herlings have offered the fans fabulous racing and an outstanding show, and I’m sure the coming weekend will be even more exciting.The 4 overseas events were excellent despite the various challenging situations we had to face; in Argentina we had to manage with political changes, in Indonesia there were difficulties due to elections and finally in China we had to deal with a typhoon, but the local organisers, IMR and FIM were able to manage these challenges and produced these events in safe conditions with exciting racing.

MXLarge: I noticed in the Argentina media that there are a handful of different cities looking at running that round in 2025. Of course, everyone loves this race. Can you give me any update on this and how closely do you get involved, or is it just up to the local promoters to finalize the deal, then come to you with that venue?

Luongo: We have a very good partner in Argentina, and he is taking care of the agreements with the venue and the government respecting fully the principals of the World Championship, but for sure we have the last word.

MXLarge: Motocross of Nations is just around the corner and obviously we are all excited for this. We know that next year will be in USA, soon after the Australian Grand Prix I understand, but how far down the road are you organized for 2026, 2027 and 2028?

Luongo: The MXoN in Matterley Basin will be an utterly amazing event, I’m really looking forward to the last race to see Herlings, Prado, Gajser and Jett and Hunter Lawrence battle it out - this is what all the fans around the world are waiting for.Concerning the future, we have settled the venues for the MXoN for the next 5 years, and shortly these venues will be announced.Anyway, as previously announced, MXoN will go often to USA.

MXLarge: Many of the paddock really enjoy the fly-away races, not only to see other parts of the World, but also the relationships that are built as we all stay in the same hotel and get to chill out a little more together. Despite that some people complain about the spectator support (due to weather in China), I can imagine the organizes are thrilled with the coverage the events get on television. I guess you could also mention Turkey, because like Indonesia, it seems it is a big entertainment experience that they are looking for with the local concerts in Indonesia and Turkey to be included in the MXGP racing? Can you give me an insight about what the promoters/countries from these fly-away events find important for their events, what attracts them to MXGP?

Luongo: The fly-away races are ideal times for the teams to get to know each other better and creates a closer bond between everyone in the paddock.The local organisers and governments are attracted to MXGP due to the huge media coverage MXGP gets all around the world.

MXLarge: Whenever I am travelling, or even watching the races from home, I see MXGP on television all over the World. It is for me, the most watched motocross series in the World, and it doesn't matter where I am. Be it in Bali sitting in a pub, before the Indonesian rounds, or as I said, on television in The Netherlands, where I live, you can watch it on various channels. I see in many sports that crowds are getting less, be it cricket, or tennis, many major sports, but television is getting bigger. When you see people complaining about the lack of crowds, do you think people forget how important television is for the flyaway races? Is this a healthy situation and what is your opinion on this?

Luongo: The world is constantly changing, and more and more fans like to follow their sport via modern technology (tablet, phone, TV).TV viewers and followers via the new technology have significantly increased especially in the overseas countries where we travel, and these countries are the future (but already present) markets for the Motocycle industry.Remember how Motocross was in the 1960’s in USA and look how it is today.China, Indonesia, Argentina are close to 1 billion people, and they are growing motorcycle markets.As I said before, TV and social media are already very important and it will be even more in the future, and these are essential for the teams as well because the sponsors pay based on the media exposure.For sure we like to have a lot of fans around the track which was the case at the majority of events.

MXLarge: Speaking to some of the Australian riders in China, that whole country is excited to see MXGP return, and they all want to invest to make sure the Australian Grand Prix stays on their calendar. Obviously, it has been a long time that we returned to that part of the World. From what I understand, Australia will be included with another GP in the area and then we fly to America for the MXoN. Is this the case, can you give me some information about that leg of the series?

Luongo: We are delighted Australia has returned to the MXGP calendar because it’s one of the biggest markets for off-road motorcycling, and we have many fans there following MXGP.Concerning the calendar, what I can tell you now is that there will be 20 events with 6 overseas events, this will be announced just after the MXoN.

MXLarge: We see that World SX and also the Arenacross series in the UK are racing in Abu Dhabi and I know that Infront are always working to get involved in this area. Even speaking to Matt Bates from the Arenacross series, he mentioned to me he would love to organize an MXGP round there in the future. Is there any news on racing in that part of the World?

Luongo: We are constantly talking with 3 countries in the Middle East, and I believe that soon we will have an MXGP event in this part of the world.

MXLarge: Obviously we often get somewhat negative comments from some of the American based media about the Motocross of Nations and there also seems to be a lot of politics involved when we speak about Team USA selection. Fortunately, the AMA are right behind Team USA and their industry in general wants to see the best team come. All other countries it seems to be less of a problem for selection teams and the World media just support the race. Everyone is just excited to come, the racers to race and the international media love reporting on it. For me personally, I love the fact it is like the Olympics and guys like Cooper Webb, Chase Sexton and Aaron Plessinger see the value of racing for their country and are not thinking about the money. Do you take any of the comments from some American media seriously, or are some of their comments worth looking at and talking about what might be possible in some of their complaints?

Luongo: What is important for a project is to be professional, very concerned about the development and to have a clear vision in your mind, then, of course there will be people who support the project and others will criticize.We are in a democratic world, so everyone is free to say what they think, but it doesn’t mean that they right.We always listen to everyone because some criticism can help you to make things better, however we manage this sport and it’s up to us to make the decisions and up until now the facts show that our decisions have been right.The MXoN is the best off-road event in the world, the format works extremely well, the crowd loves it, and the media coverage is the best for an off-road event in the world, and on top of that the racing is simply amazing. So, what is there to do to make it better? Of course we make some fine-tuning every year, so to those who complain I would like to say: come to see the racing on site to feel the vibes for themselves and then talk.

MXLarge. You have been promoter of MXGP for a long time, first in the 1990s and now for the last 20 years, since your return. A lot of fans talk about the 1980s and 1990s and they miss some elements of that era. I think motocross has grown so much that it probably has lost some of its charm, the romance. It is more business now, big trucks, big sponsors, and I remember being at Bellpuig, when Dorna took over in 2001, and it felt different. Firstly, do you think the way the sport was run in the 1980s, that it could still survive, because all sports have to grow and move on, and develop. Also, because you are from that era and have been around for a long time, do you sometimes miss that era or the little old circuits, down a dirt road and people close to the track. The sport has changed a lot, most for the betterment of our sport, but many things that we enjoyed as young men, are not really allowed anymore, due to safety rules and other things.

Luongo: I really understand what you mean, and this is the feeling of the people who are now between 60 and 70 years of age, and I understand completely; missing the BBQ in the paddock, the smell of sausages and french fries around the track, but the world has changed drastically over the last 20 years, and if we don’t follow the world’s development we would lose everything.Whether we like it or not the world and the sport continues to grow, and for sure now we have many rules concerning the safety which are right to be enforced due to the speed of the bikes now, the most important for us is the safety of the riders and the public around the track, the sport needs to become popular for the value of the sport not for the accidents.My vision is always to look towards the future, it would be selfish and not constructive if I were to try to keep things as they were.If we had not made all these developments, for sure Motocross would still exist but the riders would not earn the money they earn today because we would not have the media coverage we have today and automatically not the sponsors and general interest.Despite all this development we always do our best to maintain the roots of our sport: 2 days format, 2 races per category, the paddock open to the fans and keeping the fans as close as possible to the action. But it all depends on what league you want to play in, if you want to be the King of Central Europe or the King of the World, I think Motocross is such a great sport and it deserves to be the King of the World, and that is why in our company we have young people in the management to continue with this growth and not to stop and live in the past.