Honda Canada Racing Presents the Monday Gate Drop

Good day and welcome to another edition of the Honda Canada Racing Monday Gate Drop. This past weekend GDR Fox rider Dylan Wright headed down to Ironman Raceway to compete in the final round of the 2017 Lucas Oil Outdoor Pro Motocross Series. Racing in the 250MX class with some of the fastest riders on the planet, Dylan rode strong to finish 18^th overall. Dylan’s teammate, Colton Facciotti, took the weekend off, however he’s planning on doing an Arenacross Riding School at Gopher Dunes Raceway on September 9^th for anyone that is interested in learning some much needed AX skills. Even though the 2017 racing season is winding down, the GDR Fox Honda riders are still very busy giving back to our amateur riders.

I hope everyone had a great weekend doing whatever it was you did. As I saw on Social Media, many of you were racing at Madoc and having fun, while some of you were just hanging out doing nothing while trying to enjoying one of the final few weekends of summer. Before I get to the racing that went on during the past few days, let me first tell you about this very cool event I attended on Thursday just outside Montreal.

Early on Thursday morning I hopped on a plane and made my way to the Montreal area for the official opening of KTM Canada’s and Husqvarna Canada’s brand new headquarters. Located in Chambly, QC, this state of the art building was built from the ground up for these two amazing companies. With an abundance of new office space, classrooms for dealers to learn their trade, and of course a room for the KTM Thor Race Team, this new facility has it all. Beginning at 5pm, there was a massive reception outside the new building with all of the Canadian media, the entire KTM Thor Racing Team, and of course all of the KTM and Husqvarna employees from Canada, as well as a few from California. It was a great evening and one that I’m sure no one will forget anytime soon. I would really like to thank KTM Canada for the invite and for the opportunity to share with them the excitement for this new building.

Another very cool thing about the day on Thursday was that prior to the grand opening of the new building, I was able to travel to the Franklin MX Track south of Montreal to ride a few of the 2018 KTM MX models. It was not only cool to be able to ride the new KTMs, but it was also fun to share the track with three of Canada’s Orange Brigade riders in Eve Brodeur, Tanner Ward, and the team’s newest rider, Ryder McNabb. For about three hours we all played around on the fun Franklin track testing out the new KTM models. For Ryder McNabb, this was only his second time riding his new KTM85 so he was busy trying to get accustomed to the orange machine. All in all, it was a great day, and I even was able to teach a non-motorcycle journalist how to ride a dirt bike. As we were preparing to leave the track, she thank me and told me that she definitely wanted to ride more. Whatever I did, I must’ve done it right.

It was also awesome to sit and watch Tanner Ward just play around and have fun on the Franklin track. You can really see a big difference in his riding from a few months ago. Racing the MX2 class in the East was, in my opinion, the best thing he could’ve done for his confidence and for his race craft. Since Gopher Dunes in early July, you can just see how much he’s grown as a rider and as a person. Although I’m quite sure that having Tanner alone under the KTM tent for the final four rounds of the CMRC Nationals was not what KTM had planned. However, for Tanner, it might have been the best thing for him. Not only was he able to use Cole Thompson’s Factory Services engine once Cole was injured, but he was also able to have JSR’s full attention at the track, and that is something you cannot put a price on. Even though Tanner just turned 18 on Saturday, this kid is mature beyond his years, and I cannot wait to see what he does in 2018.

With the KTM open house wrapped up, Tanner Ward, Ryder McNabb and the rest of the KTM Team travelled west to Madoc, ON for the 7^th Annual Madoc Amateur Event. Even KTM Thor Racing Team Manager and 5-time Canadian MX1 Champion JSR decided to dust off his Thor gear and race the +35 class. I wasn’t able to go to Madoc this weekend, but I’m sure it was very cool watching JSR take to the track again. For the past few years he’s been saying that he was going to come to Walton and race the TransCan, but with limited time (and probably desire) to do the necessary preparation needed to race at his normal speed, he decided against it. I know from experience how hard it is to get back on the race track, so good on JSR for lining up this weekend. By the looks of everything at Madoc this past weekend, the weather was absolutely amazing and the racing was top notch. Congratulations to all of the winners and to all of the riders that competed in Madoc. With the absence of the Walton TransCan this summer, this event was as close as Ontario got to an Amateur National in 2017. 

The reason why I wasn’t able to attend Madoc was that a few months back my wife signed our family up for this cool event called “The Mud Hero Challenge.” Basically, the Mud Hero Challenge is a 6km run through the woods of the Albion Hills Conversation Area with 18 cool obstacles mixed in. Some of the obstacles require you to go through waist deep mud while you’re trying to get through them, so by the end of the 6km course everyone is covered head to toe in mud and you’re pretty much exhausted. It was definitely a ton of fun and it’s something we will try to do again in 2018. There was a separate kids’ course for children under 12, so my son Ayrton loved that. Unfortunately, my wife hurt her big toe on Friday and wasn’t able to compete, so even though she signed me up in the first place, I had to do the course without her. She was obviously pretty bummed out and that is another reason we’re looking forward to 2018. Hopefully next year this event doesn’t conflict with Madoc as it would be cool to get a bunch of MX families together and take on the Mud Hero Challenge. They would just have to be good mud riders!

This coming weekend we are back to moto as we’re heading to Michigan on Friday for the 2017 Monster Energy Baja Brawl. This annual event has become very popular with both Canadian riders as well as top riders from all over the USA. When we went last year, there were over 30 riders in the 65 class alone, so you can imagine how cool that was to experience. Anyway, I hope to see a lot of Canadian riders in Baja this coming weekend as the Brawl has truly become a massive event.

Finally, this past weekend, Justyn McCabe put on an incredible event at the old Austin MX track in Manitoba featuring many of this sport’s past greats. Riders like Ross Pederson and Al Dyck were in attendance along with many others. Most of the Austin track is now a golf course so part of the fun was allowing the riders to rip up the golf course as they rode the old track. Look for a complete story on this very cool event in the October issue of MXP Magazine as Justyn deserves a ton of credit for putting it all together. I hope everyone has a good week and a great final long weekend of this strange summer. Please travel safe and ride safe!