Greetings! Welcome to another Monday Gate Drop Column, presented once again by Yamaha Motor Canada. This is a big week for the crew from Yamaha as they’re hosting two big events at Sand Del Lee. First up, is the media ride day on Friday, when my colleagues and I will get a chance to spin some laps on the new 2025 YZ models. Then on Saturday, Yamaha is hosting another Blu Cru Appreciation Ride Day at SDL. The weather looks great so, it should be another glorious few days of riding at one of Canada’s best tracks.
Speaking of Yamaha, it looks as though they could be well represented when it comes to the MXON and Team USA. After announcing last week that Cooper Webb would be filling in for the injured Chance Hymas. Now, it looks as though Eli Tomac could be filling in for Chase Sexton. Chase unfortunately, may have sustained an injury when he was landed on in the opening 450 main event in Las Vegas. He was going for X-Ray’s yesterday to see if his right hand has some breaks in it or not. Either way, Chase is a hurting unit right now, and certainly not ready to compete against the World’s best riders in two weeks’ time. So, now Team USA is turning to Tomac, who as you may remember, was in the running to be chosen last month before he announced that he was withdrawing his name. Now, Team USA needs him, and according to Team Manager Roger DeCoster, if Tomac can’t go, then Team USA may not go as all of the other top riders are injured. We shall wait and see what happens as it all will be finalized today.
As far as Team Canada goes, according to Jess Pettis and Team Manager Kourtney Lloyd, the crew is ready to go. I spoke at length to both last week, and all that is really left to finish off are a few items this week, and then fly over to the UK. Jess told me that he, Kaven, and Dylan are all flying over together (with their lovely significant others), and then will spend that first afternoon sightseeing through London. I think it’s great that all three riders have ridden together a couple of times in Quebec during the past month, and are cool enough with each other that they will be able to hang out and see some of the cool touristy places in London before travelling to the track. Obviously, Dylan and Jess have been heated rivals on the track for the past few seasons, but with Dylan injured for most of the summer and no championship battle to sour their relationship, for now they’re friendly off the track, and that is great news for Team Canada and their chances of finishing well at the MXON. Also, after speaking to Kourtney and listening to all of the hoops that she had to jump through to make this year happen, I think she deserves a heap of credit once again. Basically, without her there would be no Team Canada at the 2024 MXON’s, and we’d all be sitting here upset that we’re not sending a team. We are now under two weeks until the gate drops in the UK and it sounds as though Team Canada is as prepared as they’ve ever been for this prestigious event.
Moving from talking about one exciting event to another, and this past weekend I attended the Corduroy Enduro for the first time ever. I almost went last year, but it conflicted with the Gopher Dunes SX event. So, with nothing to do this weekend I made the 2.5 hour trek to Gooderham, Ontario, to check out the 70th running of this iconic event. Obviously, with me being a lifelong MX guy, Enduro racing hasn’t been my jam, and other than the Red Bull Outliers in 2019, I have never ridden an event outside of motocross. So, with that in mind, I was certainly excited to travel up to the Eastern end of Ontario’s Cottage Country to see what all the hype was about. Once I arrived on Friday morning the first thing that stuck out to me was how much the community of Gooderham, and its surrounding area appeared to embrace this event. The main paddock area and vendor row are situated right beside the Community Centre, and that is also where sign-up is held. OEM’s like Yamaha, KTM, and Kawasaki were all there with big displays and a lot of demo bikes available to ride. There was music playing, Leatt was there displaying their latest protection gear, there were multiple food trucks, including one selling some unreal wood fire pizza (I had one for lunch), overall there was just a great vibe that felt more like a festival than a motorcycle race. One of the first people I saw was the man behind the Corduroy Enduro, and former off-road racing legend, Blair Sharpless. I have known Blair for 30 years, and I even raced against him once at the OMA Amateur SX at the Sky Dome in 1989, when we were both in the Intermediate Class. For the past few years Blair has been pushing me to come up and check out the Corduroy Enduro, so he was happy to finally see me there. There was also a lot of other familiar faces there, including Brett and Melody Lee, and former NHL player turned off-road riding enthusiast Scott Thornton. The Lee Family was there supporting their rider Quinn Amyotte, who was competing in his first ever Enduro race. Tyler Medaglia was there ready to win his second Corduroy in a row. Tyler was fresh off a big win last weekend at the FMSQ XC race in Quebec, so he looked confident as we spoke in the afternoon. After walking around the paddock for a few hours, I then drove ten minutes down the road to see one of the most challenging sections of the course, Saturday’s Test #6, also known as the infamous Greens Mountain. This wooded section of the Corduroy is made up of both single track trails, as well as climbs and descents over large rock faces. What started off as a short walk ended up turning into a two hour hike through the woods, eventually arriving at the top of the main rock hill. It was an impressive trek and it certainly opened my eyes to the high level of difficulty that the riders were going to be facing the following day. In the end, I had a great day and I will definitely be returning next year, maybe I’ll even consider throwing my leg over a bike and racing the Vet Class. Congratulations to Tyler Medaglia on winning the 70th Corduroy Enduro, and taking home the big $4,000 first place cheque. Also, great job to WLTN Kawasaki rider Quinn Amyotte as he took home a solid 16th OA in the pro class.
On Saturday evening, it was time to sit and watch the final round of the 2024 SMX Playoffs from Las Vegas. With this being the final race of 2024 for the 31 round Supermotocross Series, there were obviously a lot of story lines. Other than the riders going for the two titles and loads of money, the biggest story was Vegas being the final pro race of Phil Nicoletti’s 18 year racing career. We were lucky enough to have Phil in Canada for a few years, and it was great to see him win races, as well as the Triple Crown Series Championship in 2019. Phil had an up and down three SMX Playoff rounds, but he finished it off in style with a tenth place finish in the final race on Saturday night. Congratulations on a great career Phil, and we cannot wait to see what is next for you! I’ll go deeper into what happened in Las Vegas tomorrow, but as we say good bye to the 2024 SMX season this morning the first four rounds of the 2025 Monster Energy Supercross Series were announced. The 2025 SMX season kicks off at Angel Stadium in Anaheim on January 11th, 2025, and then travels the following week to San Diego, then back to Anaheim for Round 3, and then to Glendale, AZ for Round 4. I don’t know about you, but I’m already excited for 2025!
Well, that is it for me this week. I hope you have a great final week of September. As I mentioned at the beginning of this column, this coming Friday I’ll be at SDL for the Yamaha media ride day, and then the following week I’m off to Washougal for the 2025 KX250 Media Launch. I will talk more about that trip next week. Have a great week and thank you for reading!
