Honda Canada Racing Presents the Monday Gate Drop

Good day and welcome to the Labour Day edition of the Honda Canada Racing Monday Gate Drop. Yes, we’re already into the month of September which usually is one of the best months of the year for riding. The bugs are gone, the extreme heat of summer is starting to taper off and soon our tracks will begin to have moisture again. With my wife’s birthday as well as my son’s birthday being in September, it definitely is one of my favourite months of the year.

I hope everyone had a great long weekend, and regardless of whether you went to the cottage, went racing, or just hung around home and did nothing, cheers to the final long weekend of the summer of 2018. My weekend was spent the same way it has been for the past two years, which was in Michigan at the Baja Brawl. As I said, we started coming to the Brawl in 2016 and we were pretty much hooked right away. My son’s 65 classes have always had at least 30 entries and a decent portion of those kids are pretty fast. Also, the track is one of the best in North America, and the atmosphere is pretty crazy. This year our famous Ski-Doo personality Larry Enticer was on hand to enjoy the races and the night life. Nick Wey and his son were there racing, as well as a host of Canadians. In fact, Nicky Beatty came out of retirement and won the entertaining ‘Whip Contest’ on the Friday evening. I didn’t even know that he could do such incredible whips! Racing the Baja Brawl isn’t exactly cheap for us Canadians, but it’s a race that everyone should do at least once. Despite Mother Nature not playing nice again, we had a great weekend. I also want to thank the Keller Family from Exeter, ON for keeping my son’s bike safe at night during the weekend. The Keller’s are just one of many Canadian families who are always there to help people out.

So summer is basically over and most of our kids are headed back to school tomorrow. This is the day that almost every motocross kid dreads, I’m quite sure. If you’re any of the moto kids that I know, the first few weeks of school are difficult. After an exciting summer of racing, sitting in a classroom is usually the last place you want to be. However, getting a good education is important. I will tell you what I tell my own son: riding a dirt bike is a lot more difficult than getting good grades. If you can do one, you can certainly do the other. Isn’t it funny that whenever we have talks like this with our kids, we sound more and more like our parents?

So the summer of 2018 is history and we now turn our attention back to the Rockstar Energy Triple Crown Series. Next up is the final leg of the series, the SXTour, which begins on September 15^th in Montreal. This first round is kind of like a one-off event as it wasn’t originally part of the initial SXTour. However, with its addition the SXTour is now a four round series. I know a few of the teams might be over having to spend money to continue racing in the fall, but I think these SXTour events might just be some of the best indoor racing we’ll see. As long as the weather is good for the Delaware round on September 22^nd, I think the bigger tracks will be great for racing. The venues in Quebec City and Hamilton will allow for the first few rows of seats to be pushed back and the floors made bigger. The increase in lap times should make for better racing at all of these SXTour events. Most likely there won’t be a Toronto SX in 2019, so this is the closest any SX racing will come to Eastern Canada for some time.

Other than the Baja Brawl and the big race at Area 51 this past weekend, Gopher Dunes held their annual Sprint Enduro. I have no idea what a Sprint Enduro is but from what I hear they’re a lot of fun. Leave it to Derek Schuster and the Gopher Dunes crew to think out of the box and have a cool end-of-summer event like this. By all accounts it was very well attended and everyone had a blast.

Well, that is it for me this week and my first gate drop of September. I know this is short but I wrote it after a long weekend of racing. Next week’s Gate Drop will come to you all the way from Osaka, Japan as I’m leaving on Saturday to travel there for four days. The purpose of this exciting trip is to go to test ride a new Suzuki. I wish I could tell you what Suzuki it is, however I don’t even know as it’s a secret. All I know is that at 13:40 on Saturday I’m boarding Air Canada Flight #001 for the 13-hour journey to the land of the rising sun. With the time change, I will arrive on Sunday evening in Japan. On Monday there is a presentation and a tour of the Suzuki factory, on Tuesday we ride, then I’m home on Wednesday night. I will definitely be posting photos on the MXP Magazine Instagram (@mxpmag) so stay tuned to hear all about my exciting trip. I hope everyone has a great weekend and I hope all of our awesome kids have a great first week back at school. Thanks for reading!