Everts announced on Saturday that he will move into the position of race director with KTM next season, something that appears to have angered his Yamaha team.
"It's unfortunate that after an unbelievable successful six years the Yamaha - Everts relation has to come to an end," said Yamaha Intur Sports team manager Michele Rinaldi. "Yamaha has made a very good offer to Stefan to continue the relationship, which Stefan also admitted. But Yamaha was not prepared to make a similar position offer as KTM due to being differently organised and judging certain things differently. At the same time we are disappointed about the timing and the way the news was presented as we had agreed before with Stefan to lift it over the weekend."
Meanwhile, no-one knows what the individual outcome would have been if reigning AMA champion Carmichael had ridden against the on-fire Everts, but even without the record-breaking RC - who has beaten Everts at previous 'Nations events - the Americans were unstoppable as a team and finished seven points clear of Belgium in the overall standings. They may have lost all three battles, but they'd won the war:
"I think I rode well," said Stewart after his 2-2 finishes. "The first moto I had a slip up and I knew I needed to get as many points as I could. In the second moto I was late off the gate and then Stefan and me went at it. I was happy for the podium, it didn't matter what they did and to me it's all about the team and winning for the country. It feels good, I didn't do it myself, it's a whole team effort involving everyone behind the scenes."
"We came out with the trophy," began Villopoto (3-2). "I was behind Ivan in our (MX2/MX3) race and I jumped off the track! It was just a racing mistake, I just layed it over too far and I was lucky I didn't go down. I couldn't have done it without my team. I think it was good, a ton of people out there. It was mine and James's first Motocross of Nations and I hope to do it again next year."
