Motocross Performance Magazine Canadian Motocross news leader
Good day, and welcome to another edition of the Yamaha Motor Canada Monday Gate Drop. This past week at the 2021 Walton TransCan we watched the Blu Cru battled hard in every moto. In the end, it was Junior rider Hayden Jameson taking the most points by a Yamaha rider and winning the Yamaha Factory Ride Award for 2021. Hayden will receive a free 2022 Yamaha of his choice next year as well as a $2500 parts credit. Congratulations to Hayden and all of the Blu Cru riders on a great week at Walton Raceway.
Well, raise your hand if you were at Walton Raceway this past week and today you feel like you’ve been hit by a truck! What a week it was at Canada’s most famous raceway as everyone in attendance experienced a little bit of everything. Rain, sun, heat, mud, ruts, tears, smiles, and just about everything in between. It was quite a week and congratulations to everyone who competed. For me, my week was a mixture of highs and lows that pretty encapsulated what motocross racing is. I had planned all summer to compete in the 40A class at the TransCan but a few weeks ago I decided to not race and just focused on my son who was racing in two classes. Looking back I think I made a good decision as there wasn’t one-moment last week when I wished that I was on the track. These feelings had nothing to do with the track conditions or my overall thoughts on racing, it was just because of how busy I knew I would be all week long. For instance, as I was working away on my son’s bike on Thursday morning trying to get it run properly, I had his cylinder in one hand and a new piston in the other, and Dave Bell was calling the 40A class to staging. With my son’s moto coming up in an hour the priority was to obviously get his bike back together. So between that and a few other things, racing was the furthest thing from my mind. But overall my family and I had a great week at Walton Raceway and also congratulations to Marc Dionne on winning the 40A class!
As I mentioned above the 2021 Walton TransCan had a little bit of everything. When we arrived on Tuesday some light rain began falling and then thankfully it went away for the opening ceremonies. However, everyone was woken up early Wednesday morning when one of those famous ‘Walton’ storms passed through. The track was quickly turned into a quagmire and the first set of practice sessions were cancelled. The sun would eventually come out and although practice was a bit muddy, the track quickly dried and by the opening moto of the week the conditions were great. The track was solid for the rest of the day on Wednesday and then early Thursday morning more rain moved through. Mother Nature repeated this trend until Friday afternoon when the skies began to clear and the wet and muggy weather gave way to cooler, dryer air and eventually sunshine. All in all, out of roughly 78 motos only roughly eight were run in extremely muddy conditions. If you or your kid had one of these muddy motos then my hat goes off to you as few things are more challenging than Walton mud. Also, anytime there are adverse conditions the track crew becomes extremely vital. Barry Hetherington and the TransCan track crew did a fantastic job all week long and the only day that I was puzzled by the track prep was Saturday when the crew had to chase things all day long. Overall though, the crew did a great job, and that includes the medics, flaggers, scorers, and the fine people who did the moto staging all week long. Finally, I have to give a shout-out to Dave Bell and Ryan Gauld who obviously have vocal cords that are just built different. All week these two kept us hanging on their every word and really what would the TransCan be without them.
After the pro motos yesterday I finally had a chance to speak with Brett Lee about how he thought the week went. Brett told me that he was very impressed with all aspects of this year’s TransCan, including the spectator turnout for the final Triple Crown Series round yesterday. To see fans once again walking around and kids playing on the massive bouncy castle and rock wall was amazing. Also, the thing that impressed Brett the most was how many riders travelled to Walton Raceway this year from outside Ontario, especially from the west. During the awards ceremony on Saturday evening all of the families from western Canada were asked to raise their hands and both Brett and I were amazed at just how many were at Walton. Hopefully, this trend continues in the coming years as it was great to see this entire country get excited about this event. Even if your week didn’t go as planned I think everyone would agree that the 2021 Walton TransCan was a success from start to finish. Here is a list of class champions from this past week at Walton Raceway. Congratulations to these awesome riders as well as everyone else who lined up and braved the challenging Walton track.
50 4-6- Austin Kukielka
50 7-8- Parker Hatt
50 GP- Parker Hatt
65 7-9- Alex Guaddago
65 10-11- Jonathan Bergeron
85 7-11- Jonathan Bergeron
85 12-16- Dylan Rempel
Supermini- Dylan Rempel
Schoolboy1- Tanner Scott
Schoolboy2- Sebastien Racine
Two Stroke- Sam Gaynor
250 JR- Tanner Scott
Open JR- Tanner Scott
250 Int- Sebastien Racine
Open Int- Wyatt Kerr
25 Plus- Tyler Medaglia
30C- Matt Koricina
30B- Devin Train
40B- Dan Tricco
40A- Marc Dionne
50 Plus- Dan Tricco
Pro/AM- Cole Thompson
Girls 9-16- Malia Garant
Ladies- Eve Brodeur
Youth- Leith Ness
Tykes- Finn Wirtanen
So that was the amateur side of things at the 2021 Walton TransCan. On Sunday the gate dropped on the final round of the Triple Crown Series. Now, I’m not going to go into too much detail on what happened yesterday as I want this column to be about our talented amateur riders. I will compose Part 2 of this Gate Drop Column tomorrow morning. However, I will sum up yesterday by stating that Jacob Piccolo completely impressed me with how smart and mature he rode in both 250 motos. Also, Jess Pettis proved once again that he is one of the toughest riders that this country has ever seen.
Piccolo came into yesterday with a small three-point lead over Ryder McNabb and a seven-point lead over Darian Sanayei. Basically, Piccolo couldn’t afford any mistakes if he intended to close out his first-ever 250 Pro Championship. Well, mistake-free pretty much sums up his riding yesterday as he rode both motos with the maturity of a veteran rider. McNabb also rode hard but a sub-par opening moto pretty much ruined his title hopes. Sanayei also had a solid day winning the second moto as well as the overall for the day, but he would come up just short of this title also. In the end, Jacob Piccolo took home the 250 Championship and I have a feeling that this won’t be his last pro title.
As for Jess Pettis, many including me thought that he was done for the season after his massive crash two weeks ago in Quebec. Even when I spoke to Jess ten days ago there was no mention of him coming back to race Round 8 as at that time he was just thankful that his injuries were not worse. But I guess as time went on and the final round at Walton drew closer Pettis decided that he felt good enough to race and that he was well enough to go out and try and secure a top-three overall series finish. And then after doing that in Moto 1 yesterday, it was determined that if he could back out and finish inside the top five again he may be able to hold on to second overall and the even bigger bonus check that went with it. Well, thankfully everything worked out and Jess not only got through the day safe, but he also accomplished what he set out to do and that was finish inside the top three and collect some very important KTM bonus money. To see how sore he was before he practice and in between motos and then to see him go back out in the final moto and finish fifth was truly inspiring. Congratulations Jess on second overall and of course let’s not forget Dylan Wright who secured his second 450 title in a row yesterday. Once again the #1 450 plate will remain in the GDR Honda camp!
Well, that is it for me today. As I mentioned, tomorrow I will write some more on the final round of the Triple Crown Series. I hope everyone had a fun week at Walton Raceway and if you weren’t able to make it this year, hopefully you will be able to in 2022. Thank you for reading and please have great week!
