As expected St Jean D’Angely was already heaving for practice and qualification on Saturday for the Nations and here are some observations after the Americans placed themselves firmly in pole position (literally and figuratively) for the Chamberlain trophy.

Ryan Dungey, Blake Baggett and Ryan Villopoto – in that order – ruled the MX1, MX2 and MX Open Qualification heats and while the latter two were clear-cut Dungey had to fend off a determined Tony Cairoli who is riding his KTM 350SX-F in anger for the first time in three weeks. Cairoli looked in the mood for a scrap and is clearly operating with some ‘higher power’ this weekend just one week after the death of his mother through illness. The Sicilian only left his home in Rome on Thursday and girlfriend Jill commented that he didn’t have time to even turn a few laps on the 250SX two-stroke the factory team had prepared for him at the Italian Grand Prix the previous weekend.

Dungey made a few changes to suspension settings on the Suzuki RM-Z450 (in what is supposed to be his last ride on the bike with rumours placing him either with Honda or KTM for 2012) but was sharp to be the first to kick off the American’s 1-1-1 scorecard. From the American trio it is rookie Baggett who seems to be enjoying himself the most, and not just through riding (where he confidently beat Musquin, Wilson and Roczen, who made a mistake while second) the youngster is feeding off the upbeat vibe of the event and has been all smiles whenever spotted in public or needing to fulfil any promo duties. Villopoto in contrast appears as though the guy is gagging for a break from it all.

It started to shower frequently and heavily on Saturday evening and the dry and positively received track (although a couple of grumbles about the difficulty of overtaking) has had a good coating of water for Sunday morning. This will certainly make it slick for the first moto and the only other major difference in terms of conditions on race day is the temperature. It was only 10 degrees at 8am this morning in the press centre; at least the half of what it was on Saturday.

You cannot help but be impressed by the amount of effort and investment Monster Energy have placed in this event. It is a first-class exercise in branding presence and consumer experience with two huge hospitality rigs lubricating the public all weekend. The site for the traditional end of season ‘knees-up’ couldn’t be better…

Youthstream are going to announce a few more contracts with circuits/events for 2012 this morning. Keep a watch on @ontrackoffroad twitter for news on that…

Russia’s Evgeny Bobryshev is struggling with fitness after his heroics of recent weeks in Germany and also doing just-enough in Italy to make sure of fourth place in the world. With Portugal’s Rui Goncalves also having over-trained in the last month of the season the factory Honda World Motocross team will be glad of a few weeks rest before they head out to Japan for almost a week of testing on the new 2012 model and participation in the last round of the Japanese series at Sugo.

Michele Rinaldi celebrates twenty years with Yamaha this season and Yamaha Motor Europe planned a small presentation for the venerable Italian (owner of the most successful team in MX1 and also director of the YRRD engineering department) with a dedicatory cake on Sunday morning at St Jean.

Uruguayan photographer Juan Pablo Acevedo, photojournalist for Solomoto magazine (one of two motorcycling weeklies in Spain) and editor-in-chief of Spain’s best motocross website www.mx1onboard.com has won the first edition of the Yamaha Monster Energy Photo competition with more than 236 votes on Facebook for this winning entry of Steven Frossard.

On the subject of Yamaha, the French distributor for the country – who is always supportive and proactive for off-road racing – was the first to show off the new WR450F enduro model for the company with a small presentation on the Nations podium.

KTM will have their factory test on Monday with a range of journalists riding the machinery of Cairoli, Nagl, Roczen and Herlings. Keep a watch out in OTOR soon for the words of Paul Malin on what it is like to ride the championship winning motorcycles.

Malin was the host of the FIM Awards on Saturday night where Jean Michel Bayle and Eric Geboers were presented with Lifetime Achievement awards and Cairoli, Roczen and KTM received their respective prizes for 2011. Videographer Mikey Neale deservedly picked up a prize for his 2011 work and…OTOR was given an award for ‘Best Website’! A massive thanks to Gav, Matt, Ray and Steve for the contributions and Gabi, Paula and Joan for their help behind the scenes…and of course Nuria..(xx). We will aim to get bigger and better towards the end of the year so a massive thanks for reading, looking and following us. Chuck your email in the subscription box to receive a notification every two weeks informing you when the latest mag is ready…