Decal Works Presents Monday Gate Drop

As always this week’s Monday Gate Drop is brought to you by the hockey loving people at DeCal Works. Since DeCal Works is an Illinois based company they’re obviously very happy that the Chicago Black Hawks are playing in the Stanley Cup Playoffs. With having said that, this might be a perfect opportunity to order a set of custom graphics for your motorcycle. All you have to do is log on to www.decalmx.com and within minutes you can design and order a set of the best graphics on the market.

*all photos by Mr. James Lissimore

So before we dive into this week’s Gate Drop I will warn you that this may be very short as I’ve been up since 4am West Coast time. I began my day with a short drive to the Nanaimo Airport with JSR and Kaven Benoit as we were all catching the same short flight to Vancouver. From there we said our good-byes as they were flying to Indianapolis to join the rest of their KTM family for the KTM Dealer Show. After we shook hands and said ‘see you in a few days’, I boarded a plane for Calgary where I will be spending the week with my Brother who lives in the city. My wife and my son have also joined me this week so it will kind of be a working pre-summer vacation.

So as I mentioned that JSR and Benoit were headed to Indianapolis to hang with all of the North American KTM dealers, my opportunity to be a part of the Indy festivities came last week when I attended the 2016 KTM press launch for all their new motocross and off-road line up. For two days myself and my fellow media personal spent countless hours riding every bike in the 2016 KTM off road lineup at the now famous Ironman Raceway in Crawfordsville, IN. It was an awesome experience and one that I won’t soon forget, to be able to test ride the next generation 2016 KTM’s on such a cool track was incredible. Although I spent most of the time riding the KTM 350 SX-F and 450 SX-F models, I did do some 250 SX-F riding as well as some two-stroking. I even ventured into the woods section on the XC models. All of the new KTM’s were fun to ride on the national track in Crawfordsville and they all worked very well. Look for a web review this week on mxpmag.com.

From Indianapolis I made my way West on Saturday to hot and sunny Nanaimo, BC for round two of the Rockstar Energy Drink Motocross Nationals. No, that was not a typo as the entire West Coast has been in the grips of an on again off again heat wave for the better part of two months. It’s been so dry on Vancouver Island that it’s residents are very worried about the possibility of massive forest fires in the coming weeks. While the members of the travelling pro motocross circus that were in town for round two weren’t too worried about forest fires, they were like last weekend concerned about having to race two 35 minutes motos in the very the hot conditions.

Now I’m going to avoid talking too much about the Nanaimo track as every year it’s a bone of contention with the riders. This year with the limited moisture, the soil that makes up the Wastelands track was very dry and when it’s like that, it’s even more rocky than usual. However, every rider was in the same boat yesterday as they all had to race on the same track. With the heat and the track conditions, it was definitely one of the most challenging rounds that the riders will have to face this summer. Regardless of how each rider finished, they were all happy to get through the day in one piece and move on to round three in Calgary.

When all was said and done it was a great day for the Royal Distributing Fox KTM Team as Kaven Benoit and Cole Thompson won both classes. Thompson’s 1-2 moto finishes yesterday was a massive improvement from round one and it definitely proved just how much work this kid had done during the off-season as he recovered from his knee injury last year. Matt Goerke was another rider who had a pretty decent day as he finished second overall in the MX1 class and Colton Facciotti rounded out the top three. MX1 points leader Brett Metcalfe rode hard all day and was probably the fastest rider on the day, however a few small mistakes kept him off the podium.

In the MX2 class it was Benoit who dominated both motos on his 250 two-stroke and took the points lead in the process. Last weekend’s hero Jimmy Decotis had a day to forget as he DNF’d moto one with a mechanical failure and in moto two he somewhat salvaged the day as he charged back from a bad start to finish four. His teammate Dylan Wright also had a bad day with a horrible crash in moto one followed by a gutsy 5th place finish in moto two. I can’t put into words how good Dylan’s second moto was, riding in pain, he charged from a bad start and with two laps to go the kid put an absolute beauty pass on Morgan Burger to secure a top five finish.

So in a nut shell that was the kind of day it was at round two in Nanaimo. I personally have never seen it that hot on the Island, I mean there wasn’t a cloud in the sky which is extremely rare in that part of the country. Although the track crew did their absolute best to keep up with the drying surface, the track was very hard to ride and because of the roost, almost every rider was wearing hand guards and chest protectors. Now it’s on to Calgary where we will not only crown champions in the West Women’s and West Supermini Series, but we will also get to see Mike Alessi for the first time in 2015 as he will make his first stop in Canada on Sunday. It’s going to be an incredible race on one of Canada’s best National tracks.

I hope everyone has a great week doing whatever it is you’re doing this week. If you live in Southwestern Ontario, then your final chance to qualify for the 2015 Parts Canada TransCan is this weekend at Walton Raceway. Stay tuned to the MXP website all week for post race photo reports and videos from Nanaimo, as well as updates from Calgary. Have a great week and congratulations to Austin Watling and Casey Keast who both qualified for the Loretta Lynn’s Amateur National this past weekend. Nice job boys and also good luck to the remaining Canadian riders who still have their final qualification race coming up in the next two weeks. That’s it for me, have a great week!!