FXR Presents Andy White’s Mid-Week Report

Another series comes to an end – the Canadian AX Tour. I can tell you I really enjoyed watching the exciting battles out on the track. One thing that really made me think was how each rider that went out on the track improved from weekend to weekend. If a rider only did one weekend or the whole series, you can see how much more confidence the riders gained. I was really impressed with riders like Keylan Meston, Jess Pettis, Brock Leitner and Jared Stock who don’t get a chance to race AX that much. These riders looked a little tight with no real rhythm at the beginning of the series, but by the end of the night they looked like they have been racing AX-style tracks for a long time.

Brock Leitner was one of the fast young pro riders who made it out to the Western rounds of the Canadian National AX Tour. Photo by James Lissimore

How about Jacob Hayes? This dude can ride Arenacross! I know he almost won the Amsoil series two years in a row. Jacob left the series with 3 championships plus a huge payout, thanks to Parts Canada; the payout was $25,000 US dollars. I did the conversion and that equals $33,184 Canadian dollars. I am pretty sure there was a pretty good party going on with the team that night. I was really impressed with Cole Thompson on his Royal Distributing Fox KTM as well. What I heard was that he really didn’t get a chance to test much prior to the event, plus his KTM 250 was pretty well stock out of the box. I call that “ready to race”. Chris Blose looked solid on his Monster Kawasaki Thor race bikes as well. I heard he had the flu in Penticton and leading up to Calgary. That will slow you down. It’s a shame that Bobby Kiniry crashed out at Round 3 in Sarnia; Bobby looked great on his OTSFF Rockstar Yamaha. We have all heard by now that Bobby has decided to hang it up; he has been racing for a very long time. I hope we see him at the CMRC Nationals this summer working for a team.

This past weekend the guys in BC had their second round of the BC Arenacross series in Cloverdale. How cool is it that both AX series had really good rider turnouts and there was only about a 9 hour drive between them. How pumped was Jess Pettis on his win? Every Pro moto had a different winner, that’s awesome. I was impressed to see Ryan Lockhart on the podium, too. Not easy having a newborn and still find time to train for AX. Noah McConahy was on it over the two nights; 3 podiums over both nights on his Husky. There are 2 more rounds to go in the BC series. Check out their website at www.futurewestmoto.ca for details on dates and classes.

It’s hard to believe that we’re less than two months away from Anaheim 1.

Looking around the world of moto, I see Ben Townley will be lining up on a Suzuki 450 for Stephan Everts’ factory GP team. Ben looked great at the MXDN this past year in France; leading and finishing on the podium is one way of getting some attention. I know he has the speed to win, I just hope he can stay injury free for the whole series. If you can stay healthy for the series you usually end up finishing the series near the podium. Look at Ryan Villopoto this past series. If he had have been able to stay healthy, I believe he would have had a chance of winning the series.

Jimmy Decotis signed with Geico Honda to compete in the West Coast Supercross series. That’s pretty damn cool! I am hearing he is working out a deal with MX101 to make a return to Canada for the 2016 Rockstar Energy Drink Motocross Nationals.

That’s it for this week. See you at the races.

After Jimmy Decotis is finished racing the 2016 Monster Energy SX Series for Geico Honda, hopefully we’ll see him back in Canada for the summer. photo by James Lissimore