Greetings! Welcome to another edition of the Yamaha Motor Canada Monday Gate Drop Column. We are fast approaching the midway point of February, and it’s almost time to start thinking about spring and everything that comes with it. This coming weekend is the Toronto Motorcycle Show at the Enercare Centre, and on Saturday the Detroit SX takes place at Ford Field. The weather forecast for the next few weeks right across Canada isn’t exactly Spring like, but the milder weather has to be coming soon.
Well, as winter refuses to let go of its frigid grasp on Canada, the first official race of 2025 took place out in Rimbey, Alberta this past weekend. It has been a colder than usual winter out in Alberta, so while the air was freezing outside of the Rimbey arena, inside, the action on the track warmed things up. The big winner in the Pro Class was young Blake Davies, who stood on the top step of the podium on both Friday and Saturday night. Tyler Gibbs was also fast on the weekend, Gibby finished second overall on Friday, but unfortunately suffered some arm pump on Saturday night, and could only muster up a fourth place finish. It was still a good showing for TG22, and he should be much better this coming weekend. On night #2, Quinn Amyotte was fast, and made his way onto the podium, as did Honda rider Tiger Wood. With Tiger originally being from Australia, having him in Rimbey gave this event a little International flavour. Finally, Alberta native Wyatt Hasil had a solid first night of racing as he took home a solid fourth overall. It was a great weekend of racing, and they get to do it all over again this coming weekend as Rounds 3 and 4 take place.
From cold Alberta we move south to warm Florida and the 2025 Tampa Supercross. This race was not on the Monster Energy Supercross Series schedule last year, so it was great to see Tampa back for 2025. With a lot of the sports riders living within an hour of Tampa, as well as Feld Motorsports having their HQ in the Tampa, this is really a hometown race for a lot of people in the SX paddock. For a rider like Malcolm Stewart, who is Florida born and raised, the Tampa SX is definitely a race that he looks forward to whenever it’s on the schedule. So far in 2025, Malcolm (like always), has been fast but, he has also made some mistakes that have cost him. Also, he traditionally has not been a great starter when it matters most, so through the opening rounds of SX, when every rider is healthy and on top of their game, coming from behind is difficult. Unless of course you’re Eli Tomac or Jett Lawrence. But on Saturday evening in Tampa, (with Jett Lawrence out and Tomac sore from a leg injury he suffered in practice), Stewart finally got off to a decent start in the main event. Then, while using a line that his older brother James told him about, Malcolm was lightening fast through the whoop section, and he used that speed to make his way to the front of the pack. From there, he held on for his first-ever 450SX main event win. It was also one of the more popular wins we’ve witnessed in sometime, as the fans loved seeing the younger Stewart brother standing on the top step of the podium. With its deep ruts, abundance of Florida sand, as well as a whoop section that demand both good technique and courage to make it through fast, the Tampa SX track really favoured a rider like Malcolm Stewart. It was the perfect storm for Malcolm to charge to the front and take the win. Now, the question is, just as it always is for riders in Malcolm’s position, can he do it again in the coming weeks, and get himself into the championship battle?
As I mentioned above, the Tampa track was very challenging, and because of that we saw several riders go down with injuries. One rider getting injured is obviously too many on any given night of SX, but when it’s this many I hope the powers at be, have a meeting this week to go over exactly what happened in Tampa. What we witnessed on Saturday was just not right, and if any other professional sport had that many incidents at one event, there would be some serious discussions happening behind the scenes to ensure it never happens again. Now, you can always make the argument that most of the crashes were caused by rider error, and you probably wouldn’t be wrong. After all, it is the rider twisting the throttle and trying to control the motorcycle, while attempting to go as fast as they possibly can. However, as we’ve seen multiple times over the years, some tracks and certain sections are simply more conducive to incidents and crashes than others. On Saturday in Tampa, the dirt appeared to break down quite rapidly (as most of the soil in Florida does), and this gave the riders heaps of trouble. There was also a longer than normal sand section which incorporated almost the entire length of one lane. I’m all for having one or even two short sand sections on a SX track (if they have to), but this was troublesome right from the opening lap of practice. With it being a Florida race and Florida being famous for sand, I understand why it was cool to bring in more sand than usual, but that section in particular should’ve been shorter. So that caused problems throughout the day and night, the deep, soft ruts that were everywhere was an issue, as was the short start-straight that led into a right hand first turn. I believe this what got Tomac into trouble during the second 450SX qualifying session when he was doing everything he could to take pole position. He was doing it so he could get as good of a gate-pick as possible on the challenging Tampa SX starting line. It’s unfortunate that we saw him injure his leg, but as I mentioned above, Tomac joined a long list of top riders who left Tampa very sore. Add Jett Lawrence to this list, and the 2025 Monster Energy Supercross Series is already taking a big toll on the riders, and we’re only at Round 6.
Anyway, it was great to see Malcolm Stewart take the win in the 450SX, and it was equally as good to see Max Anstie win the opening round of the 250SX East Series in Tampa. Max simply outsmarted everyone while riding fast and remaining on two wheels throughout the day. Other top riders crashed out, some were sick with the flu, others got bad starts and weren’t able to get near the front, it was just Anstie’s night and I hope we see more wins from him in the future. We only had one Canadian signed up for Tampa (this was surprising) and that was Jeremy McKie. Unfortunately, he came up short on the Triple jump on Media Day and injured both wrists. We haven’t seen Jeremy race in sometime, so it was great to see him back at the track. Hopefully, he can heal up fast and be ready for the Canadian season in a few months. I’ve always liked Jeremy and his family, so I hope to see them racing full time again in the near future.
Well, that is it for me this week. I hope everyone has a great week, and Happy Valentine’s Day to all on Friday. I will be at the Toronto Motorcycle Show this weekend, so I hope to see some of you there. I know I’ve said this multiple times before, but I love seeing people walking around looking at new motorcycles. It reminds me of my childhood as my Dad and I used to do the same thing years ago. Of course, in those days (with no internet or Social Media), the shows were the first time that you would see the new bikes. Anyway, I will be there, as will Dylan Wright and Jess Pettis, who will be there all weekend signing autographs. Finally, my Rider of the Week is Eli Tomac. I know he didn’t finish well in the 450SX main event on Saturday. However, he did well just to line up and finish, and I think his injury is much worse than they were saying on the broadcast. Heal up Eli, and I hope you are back to 100% very soon. Thank you for reading and if you have any questions or comments, please email them to me at editor@mxpmag.com.
