Motocross Performance Magazine Canadian Motocross news leader
Welcome to 2017 and another glorious year in Canadian motocross. As we focus our attention on the Monster Energy Supercross Series for the first part of the year, it will be interesting to see how new Honda rider Ken Roczen fairs in his first season riding red. Ken Roczen, and his teammate Cole Seely will be racing the all-new 2017 CRF450R in Supercross and everyone at Honda couldn’t be more excited. Once the supercross series is complete, we’ll turn our attention to the Rockstar Energy Drink MX Nationals where the Honda Canada Fox GDR Racing Team will hit the track with their talented duo of Colton Facciotti and Dylan Wright. What an exciting 2017 we have ahead of us and we couldn’t do it without the support of Honda Canada Racing. Now it’s time for your weekly Honda Canada Racing Monday Gate Drop.
Good day and welcome to the final Monday Gate Drop of January. Yes, we’ve almost made it through the first month of the year, the saddest month as some people say. For those of us that live in Ontario, I saw on the news last week that we haven’t seen any real sun since December 15th. I know the sun has come out a few times over the past month, however I believe that this story was referring to the sun being out for days on end. Today at my house at least the sun is shining bright, but the temperature is -12c, so I guess you have to take the good with the bad. At this point I think I’ll take the sun and the vitamin D that it brings.
Alright, let’s jump into the news of the past week. I suppose the biggest Canadian news we had was on Friday when Brock Hoyer won the Snowbike final at the X-Games in Aspen. I’ve watched a few snowbike videos over the past year. They look really cool to ride in the mountains, but I was a little skeptical about what the actual racing would be like. I guess with the hype of the X-Games as a back drop, the snowbike final was pretty cool with Canadians taking two of the top three spots on the podium. It was great to see Brock Hoyer win a gold medal as he’s always been a rider capable of just about anything. I remember a couple of years ago when he rode the first few CMRC Nationals in the MX1 class. Considering he was just racing the first few rounds for fun, Hoyer did pretty well in the MX1 class against some pretty fast riders. I loved seeing how excited Brock and his crew were after the race as they did exactly what they went to Aspen to do. He was the fastest rider all day and he carried that speed into the main event. Congratulations to Brock and his team on their incredible performance on the world’s biggest stage. Canadian fans will get to see Hoyer this weekend in Revelstoke, BC at Round 1 of the Motovan/Yeti Snowbike Nationals. Here is all of the information you need for this weekend’s big race. www.mcqmx.ca/canadiansnowbikenationals
The battle for second between Chad Reed and Ryan Dungey was a good one inside the University of Phoenix Stadium. Photo by Krystyn Slack
Was it just me or was Supercross really hard to watch this past weekend in Canada? I’m one of the fortunate ones who gets the Fox Sports Channel with my Rogers package, but on Saturday evening they were showing the 24 Hour Rolex race from Daytona instead of the Phoenix SX. I love motorsports, but I don’t how anyone could sit and watch this car race from Daytona. It didn’t even look exciting for the drivers. Anyway, thanks to some obscure link on Daily Motion I was able to watch the race, although I had no sound and it kept cutting out. I think everyone was happy for the series to be back inside a true football stadium as the increased floor space allowed for a larger track. With the exception of the tunnel jump and the sand section, I thought the Phoenix track was your basic, old school SX track. It had a long start straight, a few cool rhythm sections, a technical whoop section and some passing friendly 180 degree corners. The usually hard pack, dry dirt actually stayed moist for most of the night, which also helped with the calibre of racing we saw.
Right from the drop of the gate in the 450 main event, you could just sense the racing was going to be great. With Eli Tomac sprinting away out front, the battle for second was the best we’ve seen thus far. I’m not sure if it was the track or changes that he made to his Yamaha, or just simply the fact that he was riding with confidence. Whatever it was, Chad Reed definitely stole the headlines this past weekend with his charge to second place. For the fourth week in a row Reed again got off to a less than stellar start in the main event. Moving forward as the series moves east, Reed is definitely going to have to work on his starts, mostly his jump off the gate. I’m not sure if it’s his technique, reflexes or his gearing set-up (I did notice last year in Toronto that he does run a smaller rear sprocket than most other riders). Maybe he feels like this gearing set-up works better on the rest of the track, so he gives up a little pop right off the gate? I don’t know! Whatever it is, he needs to fix it ASAP as I believe that he can still win races if he starts out front. Hopefully his result on Saturday will serve as a massive confidence builder for the rest of the series. With Eli Tomac proving that he’s either on or off, and Ryan Dungey’s desire to play it safe more often than not, I think the door is still wide open for whomever wants to step-up to win this championship.
After struggling through the first three rounds of the 2017 Monster Energy Supercross Series, Eli Tomac finally put it all together in Phoenix and rode off with a convincing win. Photo by Krystyn Slack
Having said that, I think we saw on Saturday evening with Ryan Dungey a lesson on how to continue to ride well, even though you know you know you don’t have your A game. For whatever reason, Dungey did not look comfortable on the Phoenix track, especially through the whoop section. They say, though, that you win championships on your bad days. Over the years, Dungey has definitely been an example of that. Even with his lackluster third place behind the excitement of Tomac’s first win and Reed’s incredible ride, Dungey still managed to extend his points lead in the process. In my opinion, Dungey came into Round 4 without his usual razor sharp focus, something that can happen easily when you lose your biggest rival in a series. I’m quite sure that up until last week, part of Dungey’s weekly motivation surrounded his inner desire to beat Ken Roczen. I know that top athletes are only supposed to worry about themselves and things that they can control. However, Dungey is human and I’m sure that the #94 was who he was chasing during his weekly practice motos. With Roczen now out for a long time, I’m not surprised that Dungey wasn’t at his best in Phoenix. Champions rebound and rebound quickly though, so look for Dungey to be much better this weekend in Oakland. This next month of racing will no doubt determine the 2017 SX Championship. It’s up to Tomac, Reed, Millsaps and Musquin to chase down the champ.
In closing and in speaking about Ken Roczen, how about his daily Social Media posts? I love that he’s being so open and keeping everyone informed about what he’s going through, but wow is it ever awful. He is definitely showing us the dark side of sports, the side that while we all know is there, we never really talk about it. Every racer out there has been injured at some point, so we all know what it’s like to sit in a hospital with an injury and the uncertainty of what the future might hold. I feel awful for Roczen and what he is going through, as the more he shares about his injuries, the more I feel like we should be concerned about quality of life rather than when will he get back on a motorcycle. He definitely has a long and tough road ahead. Hopefully the often gruesome looking steps that he’s going through now will mean that he’ll be able to make a full recovery in the near future. Anyway, that is it for me this week. I hope everyone has a safe week, and again, congratulations to Brock Hoyer and his team on their X-Games gold medal.
