Decal Works Presents Monday Gate Drop

Good morning and welcome to this week’s Monday Gate Drop brought to you by the fine hockey loving folks at DeCal Works. If you want to get some custom graphics for your new or used bike, DeCal Works is the place to go. Just visit their web site at www.decalmx.com and within minutes you can build yourself the exact custom graphic package you want.

Good morning Canadian motocross fans and MXP readers. This week’s Decal Works Monday Gate Drop comes from sunny and mild Fort Mill, SC, a small city with a lot of rich history located just about 10 minutes south of Charlotte. This will be our base until Thursday of this week when we will make our way northwest to the circle city and Indianapolis, IN, where on Saturday night our son Ayrton will be racing in the KTMJRSX at the Indianapolis SX. It should be an exciting week and weekend. As this is kind of a working vacation for me, I’m going to keep this column short and sweet.

Before I get to the Daytona SX or the Thailand MXGP, let me give a mention to Tyler Medaglia on his amazing ride on Sunday at the opening round of the 2015 Amsoil GNCC Series in Florida. Obviously, Tyler isn’t a seasoned GNCC rider like everyone that lined up yesterday, however he does know how to ride a motorcycle and he is one of the fittest athletes on two wheels in this country. So it really wasn’t a surprise that he would do well in those types of conditions.

It was also Tyler’s first race on his new, sleek white Husqvarna and by all accounts things went pretty well. I reached out to him last night and here is what Tyler had to say about his day in the dirt. “The race went pretty awesome, all things considered. My Dad was a huge help as we were running around in the morning trying to figure everything out. On the first lap I had a crash that kept me from pacing the leaders so I had no idea how fast to go. For a stock Husqvarna with no hand guards, no quick fill tank and my SSS MX suspension, I actually felt great. We did two pits stops with my Dad pouring gas straight out of a gas can so we lost a little time there but we did what we had to do. To finish top five against the factory guys was pretty sweet.” I don’t know about you but this sounds like a perfect Husqvarna ad. It’s not every day a rider does this on a fairly stock bike. Well done Tyler, and also a big congratulations to Jamie Baskerville who won his class in his first big bike race, and to Shelby Turner who rode to an amazing 8th in the Women‘s class. It’s always nice to see Canadians doing well in all types of conditions.

Now on to the second round of the 2015 MXGP Championships, which took place in hot and humid Thailand yesterday. After last weekend’s unpredictable results by not only Ryan Villopoto but also by last year’s champion Antonio Cairoli, this weekend showed a little more of what we all expected as RV2 dominated qualifying on Saturday and then won his first moto of the young season on route to a 1-3 moto score and the overall win. I know it’s what the world was waiting for, but if you really think about it, it’s pretty cool to think that last year’s Monster Energy SX Champion actually just won his first ever GP, and in Thailand to boot. What RV2 did this past weekend was nothing short of amazing. It was a great rebound after all of his troubles at round one in Qatar. Actually, if you read my Deep Thoughts with Brett Lee on Thursday you would have noticed that we pretty much predicted RV2’s and Medaglia’s results. Like RV2, it was a great rebound for Brett and I after our failed attempt at predicting how he would finish in Qatar.

Anyway, MXP had James Kern in Thailand this past weekend and he had this to report:

“I saw some very trick machines this weekend in Thailand. HRC supported Team Assomotor from Italy was sporting Solva suspension, which I have never heard of. It is Italian stuff; the outer tubes must be close to 55mm.Gautier Paulin’s Factory Honda had a super trick Showa shock that I’ve never seen in Japanese National spy pics, which is usually where you see the beta prototypes first. Also very cool was Jeremy Vanhorebeek’s Factory Yamaha with electric start, a hydraulic clutch and carbon fibre everything.

The track was very tight with one long roller section going into a big lifter, followed by a 90 degree left with one deep rut leading to the only flat straight on the track. Otherwise, it was more of a supercross than GP, for sure. The Thai fans cheered like mad for Villipoto, which was cool to see and hear, however the 36c heat really took a toll on the riders. Most of them were dropping back around four seconds per lap by the late stages of each moto.

RV2 made them all, except Desalle, look slow in moto one. The Frenchman was second, and factory Yamaha Romain Febvre, also French, rode a strong moto holding onto third from the first lap. Tommy Searle ate it hard on the finish line launcher on the second lap. At this point, I’m not sure how injured he is. Great day of racing so far although they cut short the second motos due to the heat.”

Thanks for the report James.

Did everyone watch the Daytona SX on Saturday night? It was very rough and technical for the riders as it usually is. To watch the track deteriorate throughout the evening is just crazy. It’s actually one of the only supercross races you see where the top riders look a little slow at times as they navigate their way through the treacherous course. The Daytona track is definitely one that you have to ride yourself to believe how bad it really is. There’s very little flow to it, the ruts are numerous and very deep, and the lap times are long, so your races are always extremely tiring. But at the end of the day there are few places more special than Daytona for anything motorsports, and it’s always cool to see a race there.

I thought the racing was good on Saturday as most of the top riders had a decent night. I was little bummed for Chad Reed as once he let Weston Peick slip by him on lap one you just knew it was going to be hard to pass him back quickly. You just can’t let someone like Peick by you early in the race as he’s just so full of energy (for ten laps anyway) that he’ll hold a rider like Reed up while the leaders get away. Anyway, it was great racing on a really tough track, and for the second week in a row Ryan Dungey was the class of the field. Oh, did I mention that Ken Roczen hurt his ankle in practice again and didn’t race on Saturday night? His 2015 title hopes are officially over and what a shame that is! I never would’ve predicted that this ultra-focused kid would come unglued so quickly in this series. I’m guessing now that we won’t see him on a race track until the first round of the AMA Outdoor Series in May.

So that is it for me this week. In closing I’d like to send a congratulations out to Mike McDowall who, thanks to answering last week’s trivia question correctly, has won two tickets to the Detroit SX on March 21st, 2015. Now, for the second week in a row we’re giving away two more Detroit SX tickets to the first person that emails me the correct answer to the following question:

What two riders won main events the first time when the Monster Energy AMA SX Series visited Ford Field in Detroit?

Please email me your answer to chris@mxpmag.com.

I hope everyone has a great week! I’m off to ClubMX today for some riding. Hopefully Nathan Bles is still based there so I can watch the new Redemption Racing rider put in some laps. Finally, check out this cool video that Fox Sports aired on Saturday about the former pro rides who are now coaching the sports young stars.