Motocross Performance Magazine Canadian Motocross news leader
When you look back at this past year in Canadian motocross there are many great stories and many great performances. In both the amateur and pro classes, we all witnessed riders push their limit on the racetrack while battling for moto wins and championships. As we’ve done for the past five seasons, this is the time of year that Palms sits down to compose his annual Golden Elbow Awards that celebrate the memorable moments from the past year. Whether it was Dylan Wright’s title runs in the 250 AXTour and MXTour Series or Phil Nicoletti’s Triple Crown Championship, there were multiple moments that will leave people talking for years to come. For this year’s Golden Elbow Awards, let’s now look at the winners of the 10 categories.
Palms pick for the most stylish rider of 2019 goes to Jess Pettis. Photo by James Lissimore
One of the coolest things about our sport is how each rider’s style differs from the riders lined up next to them on the starting line. To be perfectly honest, when I was growing up, all of the top riders were fast but riders with good style were few and far between. These days almost every top rider has a good riding style with solid fundamentals, but like in any sport, some are still better to watch than others. In the past, the winners in this category have been riders like Christophe Pourcel and Cole Thompson, riders that don’t appear to use a lot energy as they race on even the roughest of tracks. Pourcel, for instance, was so smooth and fluid that you could barely hear him as he rode by. Usually he was two gears higher than every other rider, using about 25% less RPMs. Cole Thompson is much like Pourcel in that he rides his bike much the same. The only difference is, at times Cole lacks a little of the superior line choosing skill that Pourcel was seemingly born with.
For 2019, I’m giving this award to Jess Pettis as I’m really enjoying his old-school-meets-new-school riding style. During this summer’s MXTour Series, every time I watched Pettis circulate around the track he was almost always in the perfect riding position. He may not be as smooth as Thompson or as efficient as Colton Facciotti, but his neutral and aggressive style gets the job done. One thing that has been proven over the years is it’s very difficult, in fact almost impossible to be a good SX rider if you don’t have a good technical riding style. Now, that doesn’t mean you’re not going to find success indoors, Marvin Musquin is proving that each year in SX, but to manipulate a 240lb motorcycle around a tight jumped-filled indoor track takes a riding style that is based on good fundamentals, great balance and great anticipation. Jess Pettis has all of this and that is one reason why he is a great indoor rider and also a National Outdoor Champion. Over the years Pettis has worked on his riding style, and once he recovers from his latest injury, I cannot wait to see him back on the racetrack.
