Honda Canada Racing Presents the Monday Gate Drop

Good day and welcome to another edition of the Honda Canada Racing Monday Gate Drop. MXP would like to take this opportunity to thank Honda Canada Racing for their continued support of not only MXP Magazine but also the entire Canadian motocross industry. With an exciting 2018 ahead, we’re all looking forward to the year in front of us.

Before I get into some of the news from this past weekend, we would like to send out my condolences to Brent Shury and his family. This past weekend, Brent lost his young son Zac to illness at a Saskatchewan hospital. This is just awful news and we want Brent to know that we’re all thinking of him. Here is a post from Brent’s social media:

“Until 10:48 tonight my son Zac bravely battled in this world. He held on for all his brothers to be with him and is now with our Lord and savior. Godspeed Zac.”

So, moving on from one Saskatchewan motocross hero to another and Blair Morgan’s incredible weekend at the X Games in Aspen, CO, it has been almost ten years since Blair suffered his devastating injury at the 2008 Montreal SX. A decade ago, Blair was coming off a solid third overall in the MX1 national series and was looking forward to finishing his season in style at the prestigious Montreal event. With my practice session being right after Blair’s that day, I happened to be standing right in front of the section where Blair crashed, so I was able to witness everything that unfolded that fateful day. Blair’s crash wasn’t one that I would call bad, however, as we all know in this sport, sometimes the slow, awkward crashes end up being the worst. When word came down later that evening that Blair was paralyzed, it was a complete shock and very hard to digest. Although Blair and I didn’t really see eye to eye on too many things for the first few years of us knowing each other in the five or so years prior to his injury, we had become friends. When my son was born in 2007, he was one of the first to reach out to me and welcome me to fatherhood. Like most who knew him and who had raced with him, when Blair got injured, a piece of all of us got injured as well.

For the past decade the only time I ran into Blair was each year at the Regina round of the CMRC Nationals. He would always make the drive down from his home in Prince Albert to watch the races and see some of his cherished moto friends. Each year Blair appeared to be happier and more comfortable in life, and we knew that it was just a matter of time until he found his way back into the headlines. Well, after being away from racing for ten years, Blair Morgan made his long-awaited return to racing this past weekend in the Adaptive Snow Bike event in Aspen where he finished a very impressive 4th overall. By all accounts, his weekend had a little bit of everything in it as he got to feel the adrenaline from racing again, what it was like to crash again, as he had a little get-off in practice, and most importantly, he had a ton of fun and is already talking about returning in 2019. This is just an incredible story all around, so please look for a feature on Blair’s race in the March issue of MXP Magazine.

Blair Morgan wasn’t the only Canadian rider competing in Aspen as our own Cody Matechuck took home the Snow Bike Gold medal. Brock Hoyer was also there and he grabbed the Silver medal, and Nathan Bles finished 11th in the main event. Finally, Brett Turcotte grabbed a Gold medal in the snowmobile speed and style event. I’m not sure about everyone else, but I think it’s crazy what some of those riders can do on sleds. To see them flip a sled 30 feet up in the air is pretty impressive for sure. It looked like a great event in Aspen and it was also cool to see Ryan Villopoto back on the race track, even though he had some bad luck on his Yamaha Snow Bike.

In other news of Canadian riders having a great weekend in the USA, KTM rider Tanner Ward had another great race in the 2018 Amsoil AX Series as he finished 8th in the Lites main event. Tanner has always been a great indoor rider and he seems to be adapting very well to these tight tracks in the USA. This aggressive racing will no doubt help Tanner once he heads back north to compete in the 2018 Rockstar Energy Triple Crown Series in less than one month’s time. The AX series now takes a week off before resuming in Madison, WI in two weeks time.

As I mentioned above, the 2018 Rockstar Energy Triple Crown is less than a month away from kicking off in Abbotsford, BC. With the exception of Kaven Benoit, all of the top riders who will race outdoors in Canada this season will be there. With such an incredible line-up of riders all set to race the opening AX rounds of the Triple Crown Series, this will make these races the most competitive AX races in North America. I am little disappointed that the second round in Calgary has now been rescheduled to March 16th and 17th. My family and I have already made plans to be down south that weekend so now I will not be able to attend the Calgary round. Hopefully this is the final change we see in 2018 with regards to the Triple Crown series.

It’s really too bad that Saturday night’s Glendale SX wasn’t carried live on Fox Sports as the racing was superb. With a fast and technical track, the riders were allowed to carry speed and battle each other the way fans wanted to see. Both the 250SX and 450SX main events went down to the final laps with Aaron Plessinger and Eli Tomac taking the wins. It’s so entertaining to watch the kids battle in the 250SX class as they’re just going for it all of the time. For now, anyway, the top riders in the 250SX class appear to be getting along off of the race track. However, I can see this kumbaya story coming to an end in the near future as you just can’t race each other that hard week in and week out and still expect to get along. In the 450SX class, it’s nice to see new and improved Justin Barcia out there battling for podium finishes. Obviously, Barica has changed his attitude a little, and he appears to be enjoying his new 2018 Yamaha YZF450. Can Barcia win a main event in the next few weeks? After seeing his speed in Glendale, I don’t see why not. It’s great to see riders like Barcia make these types of comebacks. It’s good for the sport and it definitely makes for a good story. This coming weekend, the 2018 Monster Energy Supercross Series moves back to California for Round 5 in Oakland. With Oakland this coming weekend and then San Diego the next, it won’t be long before the series moves east and gets really serious. I’m sure everyone is looking forward to that. We will also have another Canadian rider to cheer for in Oakland as Jess Pettis will be making his SX debut. He will race in the 250SX West class with Brock Leitner, who happened to once again make the night show this past weekend in Glendale. Well done Brock, keep up the great riding!

Well, that is it for me this week. I hope everyone has a great, safe week. I’m not sure if you saw this on Social Media this past weekend but Gopher Dunes was able to open for two days of riding. With the weather being not too bad in Ontario recently, it was cool to see a track opening and to see a few riders getting out for a rip. Again, have a great final week of January 2018.