Northern Notes: The sky is falling?

By Danny Brault

Even though it’s only my second column of the year, I’m going to shake things up a little and disagree with thoughts being shared on the current state of Canadian moto.

It seems some have gotten all flustered and bent out of shape on why the Medaglia brothers are left without a chair this far in 2014, and why Cycle North doesn’t have the support ($) necessary to go national racing this summer. The conversation has become quite negative, for the most part, but I think if we do a little dissecting, we’ll see that things aren’t that ugly.

First off, don’t get me wrong; I’m sad to see Kourtney Lloyd’s Cycle North team unable to compete in the nationals. They had an impressive display and team last year, and this winter during the Arenacross series, but the reality is that they are a dealership and it doesn’t make financial sense for them to be spending money in regions other than their own, because that’s not where their sales come from. If it were, say, teams like OTSFF or KTM Canada dropping from the series, then we’d have good reason to be concerned.

My bet is that we see Cycle North back on the national circuit in the next year or two, once Husqvarna Canada gets organized, moves some bikes and has a budget to work with. Cycle North is a thriving dealership (and a very beautiful looking one, I might add), Kourtney Lloyd is a great team manager and they get results.

When considering Tyler and Jeremy Medaglia, again, it saddens me to see these hard working athletes without a solid deal. If we examine the details, however, it might not be so shocking as to why they’re being left out in the cold (and I’ve learned over the last day that both are very close to signing a deal).

I admire both Tyler and Jeremy; they are of a few who in Canada that treat racing as a full-time job and put in the work. Unfortunately, there are only so many chairs to go around and they’ve placed themselves in awkward positions. For Tyler, he’s caught between a rock and hard place. He likes KTM and really wants to stay on orange, but, KTM doesn’t have the same dollars to play with like they have in the last two years. Fox has shifted their focus to individual sponsorships, and Red Bull is making KTM’s team manager Andy White sweat, as they decide whether or not they’ll be back. (A lot of Red Bull’s money got tied up into athlete sponsorships/ contingency during the Winter Olympics, so that held things up quite a bit.)

So with Red Bull and Fox pulling back (but not necessarily out) from the KTM team, that leaves a big hole in budget. That being said, White isn’t going to tell Tyler, “Hey, you should keep your options open, just in case,” because Tyler is fast and KTM wants to keep him, if they can. So, every week since Walton last August, Tyler sits by the phone, waiting anxiously to hear the final word … and he’s still waiting. Had the two-time MX2 champ known he’d be sitting in the waiting room this long, he most likely would have been making calls and inquiries with other teams months ago. Hindsight is 20/20, and if Tyler could have saw into the future, he may stuck with Gopher Dunes Honda instead of switching to KTM at the 11^th hour last spring. Now Colton Facciotti is keeping that seat warm, which now includes a fancy new factory racing semi instead of a cube van.

Looking into my crystal ball, my prediction is we see Tyler riding a Kawasaki with support his local dealer, Freedom Cycle, a Yamaha with MX101 or a Husqvarna (aka KTM). If I must pick just one of those options, I choose Husky.

This just in: MX101’s Kevin Tyler and Johnny Grant are traveling down to Daytona this weekend, with plans to encourage a very fast young American to team up with Dylan Wright in the MX2 class. Who is it? Well, I did promise I wouldn’t share the rider’s name, but I will tell you he raced in Canada last year and I really dig his riding style. Can you guess?

As for Tyler’s younger brother, Jeremy, the latest rumour is that he will be racing MX2 for the MotoConcepts Suzuki team, along with Mike Alessi, Kyle Cunningham and Michael Byrne. Again, shoulda, woulda, coulda, but if Jeremy didn’t leave Yamaha and the MX101/ RM Motorsports Team (doesn’t the “M” stand for Medaglia?) without warning, to go race Arenacross for Cycle North, there wouldn’t be cause for concern on whether he would have support for the 2014 nationals. “You jump from job to job, like I do with bikes!” he said to me last night over text message. He’s right on both accounts.

Like most of us, I’m sure Jeremy expected Cycle North to be running another national effort, and thought he would continue running their colours from indoors to outdoors. That didn’t happen, now he’s without a bike. Actually, he likes to keep his cards close to his chest, and while clearing the air in a friendly argument last night, Jeremy admitted he’s got a couple of options to choose from for national support this season.

I’m not 100-percent confident they do, but did these additional details help lessen the negative vibe floating around the chat forums this week?

How about we run through all of the positive things that are going on, maybe that what will turn some frowns upside down?

Btw, revisiting my ‘”clearing the air” conversation with Jeremy. I can’t stress enough how important it is for people to always pick up the phone and talk things out. Don’t sit there and ‘think’ you know what another person is thinking or believing, deal with them directly and remove any hint of miscommunication. Adding to that, never trust another person’s take on something; remove the middle man and go to the source. Danny’s life lesson of the day, ha!

Is anyone reading this right now thinking, ‘I thought this guy’s column was supposed to be about regional happenings, not national racing?’ If you are, that is correct but I really felt like we needed to nip this negative-nelly feeling in the butt and get everyone excited for the amazing year I believe we’re going to see in the national series.

Seriously, check out all of these positive things happening in Canadian moto in 2014 and beyond:

Let’s hear it for Rockstar Energy Drink stepping up as the new title sponsor of the national series. Not simply throwing a bunch of cash, banner and trophy girls at us, Rockstar is very active in discussions on how to increase fan awareness and attendance at the nationals. They’re investing in post-race rock concerts following four of the 10 nationals (Nanaimo, Regina, Gopher Dunes and Moncton) with the Arkells as the headlining band, have helped OTSFF hire on hired guns, Nico Izzi and Kyle Chisholm, and they’re investing into some new infrastructure, like a bigger and better home-base for national staff.

Honda’s back! From the grassroots to pro level, Honda Canada is making a splash. For the first time in a long time, Big Red is offering contingency at events and championships across Canada. At the national level, they’ve increased their support of the Gopher Dunes TLD Team to bring aboard three-time MX1 champion, Colton Facciotti, and in MX2, they’ve chosen young gun Westen Wrozyna, instead of hiring a US kid (Gopher Dunes’ Derek Schuster tells me they were in talks with Jesse Wentland but they and Honda agreed it was best to raise up some Canadian bacon). Honda has also purchased a factory-racing semi from TLD to house Facciotti and Wrozyna during the 10 national rounds. Go team go!

The Red Riders have always been good at nurturing the recreational side as well, and they are investing into off-road facilities across Canada, including Popkum Motor Park in British Columbia. Gopher Dunes and Deschambault in Quebec. All of this bodes well for the future of not only motocross racing in Canada, but the health of dirt bike riding in general.

Mike Alessi is coming! It seems this story is gaining more traction everyday, and I heard this week that Alessi and the MotoConcepts team is traveling north to compete at the nationals on Suzuki. Regardless of how he finishes, you know Alessi is going to give us something to talk about. My prediction is we see a tight race between Metcalfe, Facciotti and Alessi … and hopefully a fist-fight at some point. Oh boy, wouldn’t that be neat?!

KTM Canada has expanded their Contingency program to include the Women’s Nationals, along with continuing their payout at amateur nationals, provincial championships and the pro nationals.

The good ol’ boys at Yamaha Motor Canada are once again running their ‘Factory Rider’ award program at all three of the big dances, Deschambault, Raymond and Walton. Purchase a Yamaha, score the most points of all Yamaha riders at one of these three amateur nationals and you could win a YZ of your choice, plus a $2500 parts credit for the following year.

More is always better, and this year we have 10 national rounds instead of 9. Many of joked before that we should run the entire national series in Quebec, since they have a laundry list of amazing tracks and facilities. Well, we’re almost there, as the province has two nationals this summer with Deschambault and Ulverton.

I caught up with Ulverton track promoter and AMXQ president, Stephane Theroux, and learned that Ulverton is only open one week of the year. This due to local residents and town council not digging the sights and sounds of motocross. When you have a chance to ride Ulverton, take it, because the track is one of the best in Canada, with big hills, loamy dirt and they even keep parts of it under grass until pre-race practice on Tuesday before the national. Reminds me of Unadilla. That’s right, pros are eligible to get some laps in at Ulverton BEFORE the national and it’s FREE.

Two other interesting notes regarding Ulverton, Theroux says he’s working on a Legends Race, which may include The King of Canadian Motocross, Jean-Sebastien Roy, and Carl Vallaincourt. This would take place on Saturday or Sunday of the event (there is also a Quebec provincial which coincides with the national). The second is that Theroux is going to launch a pre-race ticket promotion, where fans pay a little more for a ticket BUT they’re entered to win an all-exclusive vacation somewhere hot, sunny and exotic.

Okay, I’m going to wrap things up here, but before I do, let’s have a little fun and giv eaway something cool. I have in my hands, an official KTM #1 plate from the first year that Colton Facciotti rode for the KTM Red Bull Royal Distributing Fox Racing Team (boy, that’s a long one). I am willing to mail this out to one lucky reader, but you’ve got to work for it. Here are the rules:

–       You must be an MXP subscriber

–       You must be 18 years of age or older (just kidding!)

–       You must email me a funny picture and caption of you doing something dirt bike related (email to dannybro224@gmail.com)

Don’t sit around and procrastinate like I do. Send me this picture before Wednesday March 19^th. I will post all entries in that week’s Northern Notes column and let readers vote on who should win this coveted #1 plate.  (Alternatively, someone could email money transfer me $200 and the plate is theirs.)

“Never surrender.”
– Peter Swanton