Decal Works Presents Monday Gate Drop

As always, this week’s Monday Gate Drop is brought to by fine people at DeCal Works. With hockey season just around the corner, everyone at DeCal Works is very excited about their hometown team, the Chicago Black Hawks. This makes it a perfect time to go to www.decalmx.com and within minutes you can design and order your very own set of custom graphics. Thank you to Decal Works for their continuing support of MXP Magazine and Canadian motocross.

So let me start with what went on in my own backyard this past weekend. As the Southwestern Ontario CMRC/AMO Provincial Series begins to wind down for another season, yesterday we all travelled down to Gully Mor for Round 4. Although the Gully Mor track is a little off the beaten path for most Ontario riders, once there you’re treated to a pretty fun and well prepared circuit. The Roberts family are always gracious hosts whenever a race comes to town and yesterday they, along with AMO, worked extremely hard to make it a great day of racing. Even Canada’s new #4 rider, Cole Thompson, made the short drive to race yesterday, and what a treat it was to sit back and watch him ride. Cole was even jumping this pretty cool quad section that had everyone cheering each time he came around.

Cole Thompson made a rare appearance at a local Ontario race and definitely put on a show for everyone there. photo by James Lissimore

I might be a little biased as I have a son who races in the 50cc class, but the big winners yesterday (as they have been all season long) were the kids. For the second time in two weeks the 50cc classes were able to compete on an abbreviated version of the main track, and just like last weekend at Moto Park, the racing was incredible. The kids’ track even had them going over the same quad section that Thompson was jumping. Now, obviously the kids weren’t quading the section, however some were going double/ double and it was awesome to watch. Over the years I’ve always thought that the experience that the 50cc kids have gotten at Walton Raceway when they’ve been given the chance to race on the same track as the big boys has been irreplaceable. The same can be said for the last two weekends as the kids have had to deal with the same ruts, the same jumps and the same bumps as the big bikes. I know this would be very tough to do at Gopher Dunes as the big track gets very rough and would be tough for the small wheels, however maybe for the 50cc Open class something could be done on the big track that would allow these kids to race on it? I don’t know, maybe the deep sand of the big track might be just too much for these little bikes. Anyway, what has been done so far has been great and if the goal for AMO was to put smiles back on the faces of these kids and their families, I think it’s safe to say that this goal has been accomplished in 2015.

As the CMRC/AMO Provincial Series continues this coming weekend at Walton Raceway, in London, Ontario the opening round of the new Canadian National AX Tour presented by Royal Distributing takes place Friday and Saturday night. The list of fast riders coming to this event is incredible, so we know the action on the track is going to be insane. Canadians Cole Thompson, Kaven Benoit, Dylan Wright, Nathan Bles, and I think Colton Facciotti and Jeremy Medaglia are also going to be racing round one this weekend. Then you add in Americans Jacob Hayes, Chris Blose and Bobby Kiniry and probably a few others and you have the perfect storm brewing. The gate drops this Friday night in London, Ontario, so if you’re a fan of very intense AX racing then you should make your way there.

Arenacross is about to begin this weekend in Ontario and the following weekend in British Columbia. We can’t wait!

We also can’t forget the Amateur program that will take place during the day on Friday and Saturday. This program works very much like a normal race day as each class will get two motos during the day, and then the top 6 overall from each class will line up for a ‘Super Final’ at night as part of the main program. This is the perfect opportunity for our amateur riders to get some valuable AX experience and have some fun at the same time. With AX on Friday and Saturday and then the Walton Provincial just 45 minutes away on Sunday, this weekend is going to be a pretty cool moto weekend here in SW Ontario.

South of the border the excitement of the 2015 MXGP Championships was once again renewed as the series wrapped up yesterday at the famous Glen Helen Raceway in California. With being at Gully Mor I didn’t get to watch any of the motos, however it sounds as though the American contingent did very well. Over the years Josh Grant has always done very well at Glen Helen, so it was no surprise that he almost won yesterday because Josh is a very talented rider. If this race was one of his final motocross races, he certainly went out in style. Dean Wilson, Jason Anderson, Davi Millsaps and Cooper Webb also rode well against the full time MXGP riders. Here are the results and highlights from Glen Helen yesterday.

MX2 Overall
1. Jessy Nelson (KTM, USA) 25-25
2. Shane McElrath (KTM, USA) 20-22
3. Valentin Guillod (YAM, SUI) 16-20
4. Tim Fajser (HON, SLO) 15-18
5. Max Anstie (KAW, GBR) 18-13
6. Chris Alldredge (KAW, USA) 22-8
7. Jeremy Seewer (SUZ, SUI) 13-16
8. Harri Kullas (HUS, FIN) 14-14
9. Pauls Jonass (KTM, LAT) 11-15
10. Benoit Paturel (YAM, FRA) 8-12
11. Petar Petrov (KAW, BUL) 10-10
12. Ivo Monticelli (KTM, ITA) 2-11
13. Thomas Covington (KAW, USA) 9-4
14. Brian Bogers (KTM, NED) 5-7
15. Julien Lieber (YAM, BEL) 12-0
16. Bas Vaessen (SUZ, NED) 6-5
17. Calvin Vlaanderen (KTM, NED) 1-9
18. Samuele Bernardini (TM, ITA) 3-6
19. Brandan Leith (KAW, USA) 4-3
20. Brent Van doninck (YAM, BEL) 7-0
21. Theodore Pauli (KAW, USA) 0-2
22. Nahuel Kriger (YAM, ARG) 0-1
23. Mark Weishaar (YAM, USA) 0-0
24. Brian Hsu (SUZ, GER) 0-0
25. Pontus Jonsson (HUS, SWE) 0-0

MXGP Overall
1. Romain Febvre (YAM, FRA) 25-22
2. Josh Grant (KAW, USA) 20-25
3. Cooper Webb (YAM, USA) 22-20
4. Dean Wilson (KTM, GBR) 14-18
5. Glenn Coldenhoff (SUZ, NED) 15-15
6. Evgeny Bobryshev (HON, RUS) 12-16
7. Gautier Paulin (HON, FRA) 13-13
8. Jeremy Van Horebeek (YAM, BEL) 9-14
9. Tommy Searle (KTM, GBR) 8-12
10. Jason Anderson (HUS, USA) 18-0
11. Davi Millsaps (KTM, USA) 5-11
12. Jose Butron (KTM, ESP) 6-10
13. Antonio Cairoli (KTM, ITA) 16-0
14. Tyla Rattray (KAW, RSA) 4-9
15. Davide Guarneri (TM, ITA) 7-6
16. Marvin Musquin (KTM, FRA) 11-10
17. Todd Waters (HUS, AUS) 2-8
18. Dean Ferris (HUS, AUS) 3-7
19. Ben Townley (HON, NZL) 10-0
20. Kirk Gibbs (KTM, AUS) 0-5
21. Antonio Balbi (KAW, BRA) 0-4
22. Adam Sterry (KTM, GBR) 0-3
23. Jesper Jonsson (HUS, SWE) 0-2
24. Riley Brough (HON, USA) 0-1
25. Kei Yamamoto (HON, JPN) 1-0
26. Sean Lipanovich (KAW, GUM) 0-0
27. Shawn Rhinehart (SUZ, USA) 0-0
28. John Paul (HON, CAN) 0-0
29. Jared Hicks (HON, USA) 0-0
30. Jordan Reynolds (KTM, USA) 0-0
31. Robert Lind (SUZ, SWE) 0-0
32. Maximilian Nagl (HUS, GER) 0-0
33. Cody Cooper (HON, NZL) 0-0
34. Shaun Simpson (KTM, GBR) 0-0

So that is it for me today as I have to begin to prepare for a very busy week. On Wednesday I’m travelling to the Air Canada Centre in Toronto for the unique opportunity to interview Travis Pastrana as he’s in town to do some press for the upcoming Nitro Circus show. Thanks to the folks at Nitro Circus; I have a sit down with Travis scheduled for Wednesday morning so that should be very cool. I will have that interview up on this website Thursday morning and then I’m off to London for press day. I hope everyone has a great week and I look forward to seeing some of you this weekend. Also, in some other good news, one of our talented video guys Matt Koeleman is recovering nicely after his accident last week. Matt didn’t end up needing surgery on his back so all he has to do is work hard on his therapy and he should make a full recovery. Again, all of our thoughts are with Matt as he goes through this very difficult time. Have a great week!!