The Time vurbmoto Almost Saved America. The Story of MXoN Team Puerto Rico

Remember that time Vurb almost saved America by way of Puerto Rico? Of course you don’t, because you weren’t part of the super-secret plan to put together an MXoN Team Puerto Rico to head to the land of meatballs and pizza (Italy for those less sophisticated as myself) to win the damn Motocross of Nations and bring Puerto Rico its one and only world title, American style. 

Let’s back up three weeks. Vurbwes was standing in a field in Kansas filming tractors for Imagination 2.0 when Jeremy Malott at Red Bull called. After a lengthy conversation about everything dirtbikes, the final topic of the day came to light, and Jeremy threw out, “Yo, there’s a glitch in the matrix. Vurb should put together Team Puerto Rico. I think we can get Sipes in. You want to figure out the other two?” With zero thought or concern for the funding, the answer was a definitive, “Hell yeah, let’s go.” (As always, we’re the say yes now, but figure it out later bunch. We were in, even if that meant upping the limit on the vurb American Express card.)

Later that day our accountant almost killed us, but that’s a story for another time. 

Super long story short, 1,000 text messages later and we had Gabby from Team Puerto Rico on board, along with the FIM. We also had Michael Lindsay ready to rip as team manager, Dan Truman handling Italian logistics and language barrier, and finally we decided we were going to pay for it by (hopefully) selling an ass ton of t-shirts. Either that or we were going to go out of business….again. 

But what about the riders? Well, we had that too. Ty Masterpool, internally referred to as “Master of Nations”, had committed and Coty Schock, aka “Shock the World” was hopping on the Vurb train to Italy, and despite a very focused Ryan Sipes at ISDE, he gave us a high probability of 75% in, but most definitely needed to confer with the best motorcycle wife on the planet, Holly Sipes, first. We could almost smell the olive oil and fresh parmesan. We were going to pull it off! Who better to lead the team than The General?! Just think of the tag line: “The General Invades Italy!” It was perfect. Too perfect, in fact. 

Now we just had to come up with a modest yearly salary to pay for all the expenses. We put our designer on the task of, you guessed it, designing shirts, we got the marketing team and assets in place, our shirt order ready to ship from the manufacturer, and just because we were so confident even had the bikes and 18-wheeler lined up for an Italian pit takeover.

Easy enough! It was happening.

Then the EU cracked down with new guidelines and required extended quarantine for travelers from the good ole’ U.S.A. First Team America pulled out, but we were still in it to win it. Then we did the math for not only the added cost per person, but the time away from home and our families. Ultimately, our prospects took a grim turn. 

In the end, instead of saving America, like hitting a supercross triple in the wrong gear, we came up short. But hell, at least we had the cajones to attempt to hit it in the first place… right?

What’s the moral of this story? Well, we’re not quite sure. We just thought it was worth telling it so people could talk about that one time Vurb almost fielded a team that was going to bring home gold….for Puerto Rico, that is. 

Nonetheless, keep kicking ass Sipez, Coty, and Ty! It’s been a blast watching you guys crush.