Greetings, and welcome to this Easter weekend edition of the Monday Gate Drop. As it has been for many years now, this Gate Drop column is sponsored by the fine crew at Yamaha Motor Canada. To help celebrate Yamaha and its Blu Cru program we have been invited this Thursday to the Yamaha HQ in Toronto for the launch of their 2025 race team. While there, we will be introduced to riders like Jess Pettis and Sebastien Racine of the MX101 Yamaha FXR Racing Team, as well as everyone else involved in the Blu Cru program. It’s going to be a great day and I cannot wait to attend.
Well, the Canadian outdoor MX race season has officially begun. Yesterday at Gopher Dunes the gate dropped on the opening round of the 2025 AMO Racing OPC Series. It was an incredible two days of racing on Canada’s roughest track, and I’m quite sure there are some very sore riders this morning. With over 700 entries on Sunday alone, almost every class had full gates, everyone was excited to get racing after a long off-season. There were too many solid performances to mention from the weekend, but one that really stood out was the dominating ride by GDR Honda rider Dylan Wright. With a fairly stacked pro class, and long 20 minute motos, Dylan showed that the last several months spent training at the Dog Pound in Dade City, Florida was time well spent. I know that Dylan has always excelled at Gopher Dunes, as he feels very comfortable in the sand. However, for whatever reason or reasons, Dylan looked extra spicy yesterday aboard his new 2025 CRF450R model. In talking to Dylan as few times in recent weeks, he has mentioned how good he’s feeling on the new bike. Also, prior to his return to Canada last week, he was able to spend some time riding with Hunter Lawrence as the HRC Honda Team has been in Florida testing their bikes for the upcoming Pro Motocross Championships. As I said, I’m sure there are multiple factors behind Dylan looking so good yesterday at Gopher Dunes, but he really did dominate both motos, winning moto one by almost a minute, and moto two by forty seconds. Dylan even crashed fairly hard halfway through the second moto right in front of me. At first I thought OMG! I’m going to have to run and help pick him up. However, after cartwheeling with his bike, Dylan actually landed on his feet, quickly grabbed his bike, remounted, and continued on as if nothing even happened. We’ve said multiple times over the past decade, “Dylan Wright is definitely built different”. Way behind Dylan yesterday was a great battle for second between Racine, Quinn Amyotte, Tanner Ward, and Wyatt Kerr. All of these riders were battling at various times in both motos, and it was pretty entertaining to watch. In the end, Kerr would grab second in the opening pro moto, while Racine charged his way to the runner-up spot in moto two. It was a great weekend of racing and congratulations to everyone who made it through the opening race of 2025.
Down in New Jersey and in view of beautiful NYC, Round 14 of the Monster Energy Supercross Series took place at Met Life Stadium. With the 2025 SX Series winding down the battle for the 450SX title is still going strong between Cooper Webb and Chase Sexton. After making multiple mistakes in the mid-part of the series, Sexton has really turned things around in recent weeks, and now with three rounds remaining, he’s looking as good as he ever has during his career. Perhaps Chase read this column two weeks ago when I said that I was jumping off of the Sexton bandwagon because it was getting too difficult to cheer for him. However, after winning a week ago in Philly, finally releasing another outstanding Vlog last week, Sexton looks to have his swagger back. On Saturday afternoon in NJ, Sexton dominated the 450SX main event from start to finish over his arch rival Webb. If these two riders keep finishing in this order for the remaining three rounds then they will be tied in points and if I’m not mistaken, Sexton will win the title on the tie break as he would have the most main event wins. This scenario is quite possible as with somewhat of a depleted 450SX field right now, Sexton and Webb could finish 1-2 in the final three rounds. This weekend, the series travels to a new venue in Pittsburgh, where the weather forecast unfortunately does not look good.
On a sad note from Met Life Stadium, popular privateer rider Jerry Robin had a nasty crash in practice and unfortunately suffered some devastating injuries. Last night Jerry posted on his Social Media that he underwent surgery to have some vertebrae fused in his back, and that he currently has no feeling from his belly button down. Obviously, there is hope that as the swelling goes down Jerry will regain feeling so, right now all everyone can do in pray for a full recovery. This is not the time to debate items like; are the tracks too challenging? or are the bikes to powerful? Jerry also said in his post he made a mistake and it cost him. Every rider on the track makes mistakes, sometimes they get away with it, and sometimes they don’t. However, like any professional sport, let’s hope that at the end of the SX Series the powers at be, sit down with the teams and some of the riders to see if anything can be done to reduce crashes and injuries. Certain years are worse than others, and this year appears to be particularly bad for injuries, but it always seems like after Round 8 or 9 the injuries begin to stack up in the series. Now, some of these injuries come from practice crashes during the week, but in order to remain competitive on the weekend every rider has to practice at race speed during the week. There isn’t another sport on the planet that demands its athlete to take as much risk from say Tuesday to Saturday night than Supercross. So, to me the biggest question that should be asked at the end of each season (and maybe it is each year), is “How can we mitigate risk for the riders?” Is it a track thing? Well, that is a double edged sword if you ask me. If you make the tracks easier than the speed will naturally increase, and we all know that when you crash at a higher speed, it usually hurts more. On the other hand, if you slow the track down by making it more technical, then that could increase the number of crashes, especially from the less experienced riders so, that isn’t going to help. Do you make the bikes less powerful? I don’t think this will help as we are where we are with the bikes, and the riders are used to the power of both the 250s and 450s. To me, the one solution that could help (and I’m sure it’s an unpopular one with some), is shortening the series by two rounds. A 15-round series allows it to not only focus on the strongest markets and more importantly, gives every rider more time off. Riders could use this time off to recover from injuries, or simply to just stay off of the bike and reduce risk. Anyway, all the best to Jerry Robin, and to all of the riders in these remaining three rounds.
Well, that is it for me this week. I hope everyone had a great Easter Weekend, and I hope the Easter Bunny found its way to your home. Finally, my pick for Rider of the Week is GDR Honda rider Dylan Wright. Obviously, Dylan rode great yesterday at Gopher Dunes. But Dylan also lost an important and cherished member of his family late last week as his Grandmother passed away after a long battle with ALS. This fine lady was often seen at certain rounds of the Triple Crown Series cheering on her favourite rider. I saw Dylan at the end of the day yesterday and gave him my sincere condolences. I mentioned how nice it was to see his Grandma at some of the races, and that she sure looked like she loved being there. Dylan of course agreed, and then said that as much as she loved it, she could never watch the start. As I say good-bye for another week, I want to once again send condolences to the Wright Family during this difficult time. Thank for reading and if you have any questions or comments, please email me at editor@mxpmag.com.
