Sailun Tire Canada Presents The Monday Gate Drop

Good day, and welcome to another edition of the Monday Gate Drop. Sailun Tire is your one-stop shop for car and truck tires as they offer all types of tread patterns and styles of tires. If you require a new set of tires for your car, SUV, and or truck, please visit www.sailuntire.ca

I hope everyone had a good weekend as well as a fun St.Patrick’s on Thursday. I’m not when March 17th went from being a day that the Irish just celebrated to a day that is for almost everyone now. Also, perhaps it’s been because we’ve been lockdown for the past two years but at least in my town the bars and restaurants (mind you there are only two) were packed for St. Patrick’s Day last week.

Our St. Patrick’s Day was spent at Gopher Dunes as finally Derek Schuster and his crew were able to open up the main track for everyone to ride. It’s been a long winter and to drive in the gates at Gopher Dunes on Thursday with the sun shining and the temperatures hovering around 18c was truly amazing. Riding started at 11 am sharp and my son was on the track soon after that with a big smile on his face. By noon the paddock was three rows deep with riders all eager to spin their first laps of 2022. We had a great time and for opening day the Gopher Dunes track was in amazing shape. With the nice weather and the supreme tracks conditions, it was nice just to be there watching and listening to people ride again. Also, for the time that we were there, roughly 11-3 there weren’t very many crashes. It was almost like everyone in attendance read Donk’s Dialed In Column this past week on mxpmag.com where he spoke about taking it easy during everyone’s first few rides of the season. Obviously, the first few weeks of riding are challenging at best for most of us and when you factor in that in Ontario at least, most of our early season rides are done on sand tracks like Gopher Dunes, things don’t always go as planned. However, from what I saw on Thursday and again yesterday everyone was riding safely and in control. If you were one of the lucky ones that were at Gopher Dunes during the past few days then I hope you all had fun. With the forecast for this next week looking dicey at best we have to make the most of days like last Thursday.

So as good as it felt to ride again this past weekend I’m sure that there are a lot of sore Ontario riders this morning. Anyway, from Gopher Dunes we move about ten hours by car to the southwest and Round 11 of the Monster Energy Supercross Series in Indianapolis. I know I’ve said this a few times but I love downtown Indianapolis and if you ever wanted to go a SX that isn’t too far from Canada this is a great one to travel to. It’s easy to drive or fly to and once there you have numerous nice hotels to choose from all within a 10-15 minute walk to Lucas Oil Stadium. Also, for a mid-west American city, downtown Indy is pretty safe to walk around even after the sun goes down. The only downside about this race is the soft Indianapolis soil that Supercross always uses inside Lucas Oil Stadium. It doesn’t matter when the race is on the calendar the dirt is always soft and rutted. Now, you can argue that this adds to the excitement of the Indy SX as the riders are constantly making mistakes during the 250SX East and 450SX main events, but if Detroit can get dryer dirt then why can’t Indy? I guess it is what it is and every rider on the track has to deal with it. Anyway, as I mentioned above if you ever want to go to a cool eastern round of the Monster Energy Supercross Series then Indianapolis is a great one to go to.

Another challenging aspect to races like Detroit and Indy that take place inside true NFL football stadiums are the extremely short lap times. During the 450SX main event, Eli Tomac’s best time was just over 43 seconds which in the end added up to him doing 27 laps. Because of these short lap times, as well as when a race like Indy falls on the SX schedule, the field is usually dwindled due to injuries and that means that new more inexperienced riders are in the main event. For instance, in the opening rounds of the series, we watched riders like Ryan Breece battling in the LCQ’s just to make it into the main event. On Saturday night he finished 10th (which is amazing for him) but in the process, he got lapped twice. In fact, a few riders got lapped more than that. Other than trying to find a way to make these tracks either slower or somehow longer I’m not sure what the solution is? But there definitely should be a solution somewhere in the near future as having riders in the main event that are five or six seconds a lap slower than the leaders is dangerous for everyone on the track. Anyway, this is almost beginning to sound like a rant and honestly, I don’t want it to. In every sport, we see athlete’s on the field of play together that vary in speed and talent and 99% of the time they, and not us, figure out how to deal with it. I mentioned Ryan Breece’s name only as an example, Eli Tomac also lapped Dean Wilson on the very last lap and Deano was having his best ride of 2022 finishing 7th in the main event. After some of the antics we witnessed on Saturday night I supposed the rule-makers of SX have more important things to deal with.

Speaking of one of those incidents yesterday afternoon it was announced that Justin Barcia was fined $3000 and had three points deducted from his overall series points. This moves him back into a tie with Jason Anderson for second overall in the 450SX class and also gives Tomac a crazy big 51 point lead after 11 rounds. I know Barcia was already on probation from an incident earlier in the season so that is why he received anything at all. The move that Barcia put on Anderson in the early laps of the 450SX main event was most certainly aggressive but let’s not ever try and take passes like that out of SX. I’m guessing that Anderson thought he had enough of a lead over Barcia to be able to rail the outside of the berm and still have time to exit the turn without any issue. Well, Barcia made sure he didn’t and as much as I was bummed for Anderson (it probably cost him the win and a massive amount of bonus money), I didn’t see anything wrong with the pass. My feeling is that if the AMA really wanted those types of passes to stop, especially from the #51, then they would’ve docked positions instead of just points. I mean, three points and $3000 doesn’t mean a lot to someone like Barcia who still gets to keep his estimated $75,000 bonus money from finishing second. Sadly in this sport regardless of which series we’re talking about penalties, fines, probation, etc. Anything to do with infractions has always been and will most likely continue to be a dog’s breakfast.

So with short lap times and a soft and rutted track that was changing by the minute, the top riders in both classes put on one heck of a show. I remember racing the old Pontiac SX as well as the Toronto SX when those tracks were so full of ruts that you’d spend as much time looking for safe lines as you would trying to race forward. Like we saw on Saturday evening in Indy, the riders basically start with taking the normal race line as the track was freshly groomed for the start of each main event. From there, you first want to move wider and wider on the track as this allows you to maintain your speed in the corners as well as on the jumps. In your mind, you’re wishing that you were the only rider on the track doing this but in reality, every other rider is doing the same thing. So after five or six laps, the far outside lines become just as rutted and treacherous as your original line so you begin to search for new lines. At this point in the main event, you’re also getting both physically and mentally fatigued as these types of tracks are very demanding. However, this is no time to be tired as there are still ten or more laps remaining and you’re most likely in a heated battle. As we saw on Saturday evening the riders now have two choices. They can either try and enter the corner as wide as possible and then try and turn down early and enter the following section on the inside of the track where very few riders have gone, or they can enter some of the turns tighter, remain low in the berm and out of the ruts. During the SX broadcast on Saturday night Daniel Blair did an excellent job of explaining this to the viewers at home. For these reasons I loved watching Eli Tomac in the closing laps of the main event on Saturday night you could see him trying to navigate the challenging Indy while still trying to maintain his pace. One of the keys to his success was that even if he made an error or messed up a section, he didn’t dwell on it and there was no hesitation. It was just onto the next section. Thankfully, the forecast for this weekend’s Seattle SX is decent, not great but at this time there is no rain expected from Thursday to after the race on Saturday. This is great news for riders and fans alike.

As far as our Canadian riders and how they fared in Indy? St-Cyr came up just short of making the night show in the 450SX class, and Tanner Ward finished 8th in the 250SX East LCQ and sadly didn’t qualify for the main event. I wasn’t the only one who thought Tanner would make the main event this past weekend as all signs pointed in the direction. His riding has been improving throughout the series and with him just missing last weekend in Detroit, Indy should’ve been a great night for Tanner. However, at this level it sometimes comes down to your start and what position you’re in on the opening lap. The Indy track was not easy to pass on and when Tanner rounded the first turn in the LCQ near the back of the field his chances were all but done. But that’s racing and I think when Tanner looks back on his 250SX East Series he should feel nothing but pride. He remained healthy, he got better and better as the series went on, and considering he came into the opening round with just 16 hours on his new Kawasaki, he has nothing to feel bad about. Tanner also proved, as did St-Cyr, Benek, and Thompson, that if you really want to race

SX then don’t just talk about it, go and do it!!! Don’t worry if you don’t have perfect SX suspension or you don’t have access to a real SX track to practice on, if you want it then go and do it. Really, what do you have to lose?

Finally, how about our talented Canadian off-road riders who competed this past weekend at Round 2 of the Full Gas Sprint Enduro Series in South Carolina. Tyler Medaglia took the overall win in the Pro Class and fellow east coaster Brett Doiron took the win in the 40B class. Also, finishing inside the top ten in their classes were Shelby Turner, Mitch Cooke, and Courtney Schmale. Congratulations to all of them and that is it for me this week. I hope everyone has a great weekend and thank you for reading! Safe riding everyone!