Dirt fighter wrote:
AMA is the sanctioning body for the premier motocross series in the US. MX GP is Europe although they have added one or two rounds in the US in the last few years.
As far as the differences go, it's mostly race format . Mxgp I believe the Motos are longer . The rules on what can be done to the bikes may be less restrictive. The tracks are a lot sandier and almost all natural terrain although they do add some booters for some airtime.
Although Mxgp has been bringing up some pretty impressive talent recently, AMA motocross is the crown jewel . More prestigious , most talented field.
Seems like the breakaway talent in Gp end up stateside. And if there were more factory rides available, more would come.
I don't believe the gp has a supercross series either. Which imo is not as awesome as outdoors but it brings the biggest $$ and fans and is by far the most popular.
I would say the talent in Europe compared to the US for outdoors has gotten very even over the last few years as evidenced by the Motocross of Nations. While we probably haven't put our best team on the track recently, we haven't won for several years and will not win this year at Matterley Basin unless Dungey and Tomac decide to race.
US track prep is much more consistent than what you see in MXGP, especially when they go outside Europe for a few races. MXGP tracks as a whole tend to get rougher than the majority of US tracks mainly due to sandy soil at some of the tracks. I wouldn't even want to ride on some of their tracks, especially the few races outside Europe - tracks are goat farms. The Belgium sand tracks would be a blast but I would likely kill myself.