Greetings! Welcome to this cold April 20th morning in Southern Ontario. Yes, I said cold! When I woke up it was -5 Celsius, with a cool wind blowing from the North. Spring is here, but you certainly wouldn’t know it today. At least the sun is out, which lately has been a rarity.
Let’s jump right into this Monday Gate Drop Column and talk about the opening round of the 2026 AMO Racing OPC Series that took place this past weekend at Gopher Dunes. This famous track (which is celebrating their 40th Anniversary this year), has hosted the opening round in Ontario for some time now, so it just feels natural to pack up and drive there on the third weekend in April. For the past few years, my family and I have always made a weekend out of this race by driving down early on Saturday morning, riding practice, staying the night, and then racing on Sunday. However, with a lot of practice laps logged at Gopher Dunes already this season, we decided to just get up early on Sunday morning and drive straight to the track. As expected, the Gopher Dunes paddock was jammed packed with motorhomes and trailers and the smell of race gas filled the air. The opening race in any Province is always a surreal spectacle as everyone is so excited for their first race after a long winter. Unfortunately, Mother Nature gave us a little bit of everything this weekend from mild temperatures on Saturday, to cold and windy for most of the day on Sunday. We experienced sun, rain, ice pellets and then snow for the final motos yesterday. But, in credit to AMO Racing and their outstanding crew, the racing was all wrapped up by 4:30 yesterday, which was pretty amazing considering the amount of riders and classes.
One of the classes yesterday that was pretty full was the Pro/Am class, which featured top riders like Dylan Wright, Tanner Ward, Sebastien Racine, Dylan Rempel, Quinn Amyotte, as well as our 2025 250 class Triple Crown Series champion Preston Kilroy. It was a star-studded cast with also a host of fast supporting riders that battled hard all day long. Dylan Wright absolutely dominated both motos on his GDR Honda CRF450R, I was a little surprised that a few of the other top riders appeared to struggled on the rough Gopher Dunes track. While everyone showed good speed at times, only Rempel and Racine (and obviously Wright) looked truly comfortable for the entire length of both motos. I spoke to several of the riders at the end of the day and they all eluded to having the same issue. Despite most of them just returning from training down south for multiple months, yesterday greeted them with cold temperatures and track conditions at Gopher Dunes that they honestly don’t see very often. First, after riding in warm weather for months, lining up yesterday with temperatures not far above zero is a shock to the system, and I doubt anyone was able to get their blood flowing properly. This as every rider knows, causes tightness and you never really feel comfortable. Second, the Gopher Dunes track can be a completely different beast on days when hundreds of amateur riders are racing on varying sizes of bikes. The deep holes and bumps develop in different spots with smaller spaces between them, and the faster you go the more challenging it can be to ride. It’s funny, I don’t recall this being an issue back in my day as we used to race a lot of OPC Series events at Gopher Dunes, but in hindsight perhaps that was because we were all riding two-strokes, and we were probably oblivious to it. Anyway, between the cold, the track conditions, and yesterday being the first race in a while for most of the Pro/Am class riders, almost all of them felt a little rusty- if you want to use that term. However, as I said above, Dylan Wright did not look rusty at all, and he easily dominated both motos. This was Dylan’s first race at Gopher Dunes with his new MP1 Suspension package, and it appeared to make a big difference. He looked better, his bike looked better, and together they looked is perfect sync with each other. Between his new suspension and new motor package, Dylan will be riding a completely different CRF450R this summer and after his past two seasons these changes couldn’t have come at a better time. Right now, Dylan looks to be a much improved version of himself on the bike, and that is great news. With a solid off-season under his belt, and now his first race being a success, the next boxes to check are remaining healthy until the opening round of the 2026 Triple Crown Series, and then racing 16 motos without a major mishap! Anyway, it was sure fun to watch Dylan, Racine, Rempel, Ward, and the entire Pro/Am class race for the first time in 2026.
AMO Racing wasn’t the only association hosting an event this weekend. Out in beautiful Kelowna, BC the opening round of the Future West MX Series was taking place, and it also featured a jammed packed paddock of racers and families. With the cost of racing and travelling currently being higher than it ever has been, I think everyone deserves a ton of credit for finding a way to get to the races this weekend, both in BC and Ontario. Dusty Rocks MX Yamaha racing rider Noah Porter was the big winner in the Pro Class and I think he’s going to surprise a lot of people this summer. Tyler Gibbs was supposed to go to Kelowna also, but he’s decided to race the final two rounds of the 250SX West Series in Denver and SLC. Tyler is currently preparing in California, so obviously he was unable to race in BC. Stay tuned for Ryan Lockhart’s 3 Q’s later this week as I’m sure he will get asked for details on how this opening Future West MX Series went.
Moving on from racing in Canada, to Round 14 of the 2026 Monster Energy Supercross Series in Cleveland. After witnessing Eli Tomac lose a ton of points last weekend in Nashville with a sub-par 12th place finish, this weekend he pretty much said ‘Hold my beer” as he went out in qualifying and crashed hard in the whoop section. I’m not sure if he injured his shoulder, his hip, or both in the crash, but his 33-year-old body sure looked in pain as he sat in disbelief on the medic cart. Eli returned for the second qualifier and tried to ride, but after one slow lap he stopped, picked up his mechanic and headed back to the KTM truck to call it a day. When all of the dust settles on this series, it will be interesting to find out exactly what happened to Tomac after his big win in Daytona at the end of February? Since that race he’s been wildly inconsistent with not just his finishes, but also his speed. Then, last weekend after qualifying first, winning his heat race, and announcing on TV that he’s back, he ran the worst rear tire possible for the conditions in the main event, and struggled immensely. Now, Tomac is done for at least the remainder of the SX Series, and possibly longer if something is really wrong with his body. I love Tomac, and I really love what he’s been able to do with his racing since turning 30, but he sure threw away what was an excellent opportunity to win yet another SX title in 2026. Speaking of throwing away, Hunter Lawrence took a lot of valuable points and tossed them into Lake Erie on Saturday afternoon. Now, with just three rounds to go, Ken Roczen has closed the gap to one point in the 450SX points standings. As much as I hate to see riders make big mistakes on the race track, these final three rounds are going to be so exciting to watch. I think Hunter has been the fastest rider overall, but Kenny has just refused to go away. Obviously, if either of these riders win this SX title it will be a massive story. For Hunter, this will fully remove him from the shadow of his younger Brother Jett and set him on a great path to win the SMX Championship later this year. For Roczen, this title will mark not just his first-ever 450SX crown, but it will also cement his long comeback from almost losing his arm nine years ago, and also his legacy in this sport. So, as RC4 likes to say on the broadcast, before the start of each main event, “Who you got?”
Well, that it is for me this week. I hope everyone has a great week and I hope you’re recovering okay from racing this past weekend. My pick for the Motovan Canada Rider of the Week is #9 Dylan Wright, who as I said earlier, dominated all of his motos yesterday and looked great doing it. Thank you for reading, and if you have any questions or comments, please email me ateditor@mxpmag.com.
