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Yamaha Motor Canada Presents the 2016 Race Season review by Tyler Unger

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2016 Race Season review by Tyler Unger

Hello everyone, my name ís Tyler Unger and I am from the small town of Langdon, Alberta. I am a 17-year-old Bow Cycle sponsored rider that loves Motocross. I previously wrote an article about my experience at my first pro national. In an effort to keep progressing in the sport, I have decided to follow up on that. I have many great people helping me out and have high expectations of making a mark in Canadian Motocross. In order to move forward I feel it is important to keep monitoring my progress and goals by writing them down and sharing them with you.

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Although cut short due to a broken scaphoid, my 2016 race season went fairly good! It started off by getting accepted back on to the Calgary based Bow Cycle North race team for my second year by the Team Manager, Todd Starchuk. From there I was getting support from many companies through Todd and our race team. After getting set up with my new contract, it was time to begin riding again after months of snow. It was a warmer winter so we were able to start riding early in the month of March. I was feeling good on the bike because of our trip to California the prior month. The track in Calgary had just opened up and wasn’t fully thawed, so it was nothing compared to the sweet sand of Southern California! In the first week of March, I tucked the front wheel coming out of a corner and crashed, which led to a broken scaphoid. A local doctor diagnosed my wrist as “just sprained” so I continued riding to gain back the skills I had lost through the winter. My wrist was quickly losing range of motion and strength, which made me ride a bit cautious on the track. None the less, the first two rounds of our Southern Alberta race series came fast and I felt really good about it.

That weekend the races were at Raymond both days, a gnarly sand track that got super rough throughout the day. I love racing rough sand tracks because it separates the guys that are fit and the guys that aren’t. I had a solid four months of cardio and weight training under my belt so I felt good! I went out there that weekend and got two first overalls and two seconds. My confidence shot way up after that weekend and through the next two rounds I was able to stand 1st for MX1 Intermediate and 2nd in the MX2 class in points. I next attended the first round of the CMRC Pro Nationals in Kamloops, BC. This was my first time trying to qualify for a pro national. That day I struggled due to my weak wrist and because of that I found myself in the last chance qualifier (LCQ) . My first lap out there was probably my fastest lap of the day as the track set in. On the same fast lap, I cross rutted on the face of a double and crashed hard. Thankfully, I did not hurt my wrist and by the end of the LCQ I was able to increase my lap time by over a second from my first qualifier moto. Even being held back from a broken wrist I was able to qualify 44th out of 72 Intermediates and Pros that day in the MX2 250 class. That wasn’t good enough to make the main event, but only by four positions which was a huge success based on my circumstances.

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I was planning on racing the Western Canadian Amateur Nationals (WCAN) again this year too. Last year, in 2015, I took two Junior championships and earned the prestigious Kermaxx Silver Sprocket Award for achieving the highest amount of points during the three day event. The plan this year was to take my success from the Junior class and apply it to the Intermediate class that weekend. I ended up not being able to race at WCAN due to a doctor’s decision.

The year had been great other than the fact that three months later from the original injury date my wrist was still causing me pain. I went to see a specialist and he told me my scaphoid was completely separated in the wrist and the only way for it to heal was by surgery. I was off the bike from the end of June and would not be able to ride again until the beginning of the 2017 season. Though my riding was over I was still eager to achieve my goals. In August, I started my off-season training five days a week to get in shape. During the year of 2017, I plan to head down to California for a few weeks in February to get some time on the bike before the ground thaws again in Canada. I will be racing our local Alberta series as well as the Western rounds of the CMRC Pro Nationals. With the support from my parents as well as the support from being on the Bow Cycle North race team, I plan to start my career as an amateur pro racing in the Canadian Pro Nationals.

I would like to thank all the great people and sponsors that are helping me out this year! Bow Cycle North, Ryno Power Canada, Canadian Moto Show, Fox Canada, Bills Pipes, Scott Motor Sports, M7 Designs, Parts Canada, LRX Performance, Race Tech Suspension, Motoseat, Matrix Concepts, Bow Cycle South, Bow Cycle Rentals, RIMK Industries, Servpro Carwash, Moto Magic One 7, Motofoto, Mission Snow and Skate, and Cyclops Cameras.

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