Monday Gate Drop

Greetings everyone! I hope all of you had a great week and a productive weekend. If you have kids, especially young ones, this is a very exciting and busy week for you since Halloween is in four days. I know our little guy is raring to go for this coming Friday, although his costume ideas have changed more than once. He’s gone from wanting to dress up as a dirt biker ( pretty original eh?), to a skateboarder, to a skier/ snowboarder. I’m not sure what the final verdict will be; it will obviously be a last minute, Friday morning decision.

Well, I guess I’ll begin this week with the big series that kicked off out west this weekend. Yes, I’m talking about the 2014 Future West Canadian Arenacross Championships that began on Friday night in Armstrong, BC. I will not go into too many details about what happened at rounds one and two as I wasn’t in attendance, however the voice of Canadian motocross, Brent Worrall, sent me a full report that I will get posted today. By all accounts it was your typical opening weekend of tight indoor racing with lots of bar banging, some not so friendly words and some hand to hand combat. While no one ever wants to be deliberately run into or taken out on any race track, it always amazes me how furious riders get when it happens in AX. Like it comes as such a big surprise! When you have five or six riders who are capable of winning and each believing that they should be winning, and they’re racing on a track that could fit inside a living room, you don’t have to be an expert to know that there’s going to be a little bumping. It’s just part of the race and part of the show!

It was great to see Rockstar Energy Drink OTSFF Cycle North Yamaha rider Shawn Maffenbeier back racing indoors on the weekend.

I think some of the problem (if you want to call it a problem) is that a lot of these top riders who compete all summer together at the Rockstar Energy Drink MX Nationals are all pretty friendly with each other. Now, there are a few exceptions but for the most part on the big outdoor tracks there isn’t a lot of animosity created, even in the long ten round national series. Of course, when you move the racing indoors to a small AX track, the aggression level goes up and friendships are tossed aside like a used tear-off. Then incidents happen and those who are on the receiving end of an aggressive pass feel cheated and they retaliate and so on and so on. I get it that no one wants to be taken out. When you’re battling hard with another rider it’s almost impossible to always protect the inside. But in AX it’s part of the game and when it unfortunately happens to you. I think all you can do is pick yourself up, take a number and pay it back when the time is right. We’ve all been there, though, and it’s not easy to just shake it off. Your first instinct is to get up and lose it on the first person you see. If this weekend is any indication then the 2014 series is going to be an exciting one. It took three weekends last year for there to be this much drama. As I said, I’ll let Brent Worrall fill you all in on the juicy details from Armstrong as no one observes the racing better than Airmail.

I want to touch on a situation that happened yesterday at Moto Park. This is something that could happen at any track or to any of us and it really scared the heck out me. This past weekend Moto Park had their customer appreciation days where every rider that signed up to practice received a free lunch. A few tracks in Ontario (hopefully more outside Ontario) have been doing this and of course it has been well received. It’s a great gesture but it almost feels like we should be thanking them for giving us places to ride all season. It’s not easy or cheap to run these tracks from April to October and without them what would we do? So as much as they’re thankful for us coming to ride, let me speak for all riders when I say that we’re equally, if not more thankful to all the track owners from coast to coast.

Who knew such a small and peaceful looking track could cause so much drama?

Anyway, I got off topic so here is my story from yesterday. While I was standing behind the starting line watching Jake Tricco graciously guide my seven year-old son around the big track at MP, I happened to witness a rider crash really hard right in front of me. Since I was ten feet away I was obviously first on the scene and what I found shocked me. Since I saw him crash I knew that he hit the ground very hard and stopped very suddenly, so I figured that he was going to be hurt in some capacity. When I got to him he was having a lot of trouble breathing and he was actually beginning to turn blue. His legs and body were also twitching so it didn’t take a doctor to know that he was in trouble. Other than tell another rider who stopped to go and get some help and talk to this kid and tell him to breath, I had no idea what to do and I felt pretty helpless. After about thirty seconds or so of him not breathing properly I started to feel pretty scared for him.

Well, thankfully this story has a happy ending as after a short time the kid coughed and started breathing again and everything turned out okay. He eventually got up and walked off the track, albeit a little sore and confused. It was also great to see the teamwork that took place in the moments after he crashed. I attended to him, one rider rode away to get help, two other riders stopped and blocked the track in front of us, and two more riders stopped a few corners before the crash site and slowed riders down. It was like a well oiled machine and everyone did what they were supposed to do; it was pretty awesome to see actually. As a rider myself it’s good to know that my fellow riders have some unwritten emergency procedures in place.

Thank you to Moto Park and all the tracks across Canada for a great 2014 riding season.

Anyway, when I got home last night I decided that I’m going to look into some CPR courses or at least something so if this ever happens in the future I’ll have some clue as to what to do. What if this, God forbid, ever happened to my son and all I could do is stand there and prey that he comes around? I looked into some courses and it looks as though they only take a day to complete. That’s nothing if it means that you’re able to save a life. I obviously have no knowledge on this subject so if anyone out there can give me some direction, please email me at chris@mxpmag.com. Other than that incident it was a good finish to yet another fun season of riding at Moto Park. Again, thank you to them and to all the tracks in Canada who do such a great job all season long.

Well, that was my eventful weekend. It’s starting to get cold outside so I think our riding days are few and far between. If you live in Ontario and you ride a 50cc, a 65cc, a 85cc or a pit bike, the indoor series at Chesterman’s in Tillsonburg, Ontario begins this Saturday afternoon. The races are inexpensive to enter and the track is always great, so if you want to do a little fun racing this weekend then head to Chesterman’s. Practice begins at 3pm sharp. In the meantime, I hope everyone has a great week, and Happy Halloween to all the kids!!! Please email me photos of your costumes and I’ll include them in next week’s Monday Gate Drop.

If you live in Ontario make sure you head out to Chesterman’s Indoor MX this Saturday for round one of their Pit Bike Series.