Greetings! Welcome to the final Monday Gate Drop of May. Honestly, I know I may sound like a broken record but where did the past month go? May has flown by and like most people, I’m beginning to get suspicious that Mother Nature has lost her calendar. Although we’ve had a few nice days in May, overall the weather has been terrible. Hopefully there are better days ahead as we head into June. The good news for the opening round of the 2025 Triple Crown Series this coming weekend, is that the weather looks great for the Calgary area.
This is a short week for me as Thursday is the day that I hop on a plane to fly out to Calgary for Round 1 of the Triple Crown Series. The opening weekend of the series is always an exciting time; everyone is starting from a clean slate, and is obviously excited to see where they fit into the series. I don’t care whether you’re Dylan Wright, Jess Pettis, or a privateer rider, there is always both excitement and anxiety for the first gate drop of the year. Even though each rider and team has spent months preparing, there is always that little voice in the back of their heads wondering if enough work has been done. At that point, the only way to find out is to hit the track and hammer out a 30 minute moto. As you can imagine, the anticipation for that first gate is always high, whether you’re racing the 250, 450, Pre-Mix, or the WMX class. As I mentioned above, unless something changes between now and the weekend, the riders, teams and fans won’t have to worry about the weather in Calgary. Stay tuned tomorrow as I will be posting a full opening round preview.
This past weekend my son and I made the ten hour trek to Eastern Quebec for the 43rd running of the Riviere du Loup AX. Over the years, this incredible event has seen top riders from not just Canada, but also riders from around the globe. This year the line up included several riders from France, including SX specialist Charles Lefrancois, Josh Cartwright from the USA, and Quebec heroes Kaven Benoit, Tim Trembley, and Guillaume St-Cyr. It was a solid line-up of riders, and in the days leading up to the event all of the tickets were sold. This was music to promoter Paul Thibault’s ears; after years of sell outs, last year was the first year that every seat in the RDL wasn’t filled. For over the four decades the entire town of RDL and surrounding area have embraced this event, and each year they look forward to whenever the building transitions from a hockey arena to an indoor dirt bike race.
The first time I travel to this event was way back in 1990. At that stage in my racing career I was a 16 year old trying to navigate through my rookie pro season. After receiving a flyer from the CMA with information about this race, I decided to head east and see what it was all about. In those days, the goal as a pro rider was to race as many events as possible during the season. Since most of us only made money when we raced (purse money), if there was an event somewhere, we tried our best attend. From 1990-2000 I probably travelled to Quebec 8-10 times per year to race. Anyway, as a 16 year old I found the RDL AX to be challenging, as not only was there a lot of top riders there, but the schedule was jammed pack all weekend. With two days of racing, there wasn’t a lot of down time, and I remember it being quite the introduction to how racing a Pro AX worked. Also, during the 1990s and early 2000s, the RDL AX at times could’ve also passed like a scene out of the movie Fresno Smooth, as the nightlife proved to be a story onto itself. If you speak to any rider who attended this race during that time, they all have a story or two to tell. But, like most things in our lives, the passage of time has changed things and now the RDL AX is a much calmer, and I’ll dare say it, a more mature event. From the moment my son and I rolled into town on Thursday evening, I could feel that the vibe was different. Maybe it was me, maybe it was the fact that I now had my son with me, or maybe it was the fact that it had been 28 long years since I attended this race. As I said, so much has changed in our lives, and I guess the Riviere du Loup has joined the list as one of those things.
As much as a lot of things have changed surrounding the event, including a new arena being built in 2005, the one thing that has remained the same is that the city of RDL is still fully behind this event. There are flyers up at businesses, the local sports bar has bikes hanging from the rafters and races playing on the big screen. Some local residents are walking around wearing old RDL AX shirts, basically the entire town is excited to welcome AX, and I was excited to once again be a part of it. The race promoter Paul Thibault has been the man behind this event for over four decades, and in talking to him at dinner on Thursday, it was clear that his memory is well intact. Paul remembers pretty much every moment from this event, even as far back as the late 1980s, when he used to race himself. He remembers when Ross ‘Rollerball’ Pederson used to come and race multiple times, he remembers Brian Deegan racing in 1993 and never wanting to leave town, he remembers the Mike Jones and Mike Treadwell years like it was yesterday, he remembers JSR’s first year in 1991, and Ryan Lockhart telling him several times that this was the best event on the planet, he even recalls my first time there in 1990, and the night I beat Ross and Todd Dehoop to win my first and only RDL main event in 1991. For a selected few, the RDL AX was just a chance to travel to a race, try and make some money, and move on to the next race. However, for the majority of riders who have raced there over the years, it has represented so much more. For me, it was my fifth race as a pro rider and ended up being sort of rite-of-passage into the premier class, and for rest, once you lined up to race, you instantly became part of a big family and you were welcomed back anytime. To head back there this past weekend and see not only Paul, but his crew as well (many have been there with Paul since the beginning) was very special, and as soon to be 52 year old ex pro rider, these moments are few and far between. Also, to have my son with me and have him lining up to race in his first Pro AX, it represented a full circle moment, and certainly an unforgettable early birthday present for me. Finally, the Pomeroy boys made history this weekend as we became the first father/son to compete in the pro class at the RDL AX. As I said, I showed up there a week before my 17 birthday to race, and this time it was my sons turn to compete in his first Pro AX as a 17 year old. I thought that was pretty cool and obviously a great reminder of how far we’ve both come in life.
Along with the build up to the race, and seeing so many familiar faces, the racing was also exciting inside the RDL Arena as Josh Cartwright was brought up from the USA to battle the French riders. Josh is a solid guy and like everyone who has been to RDL before, he was very happy to be back. It is also worth noting that our 2024 250 class Triple Crown Series champion Kaven Benoit was racing a 250 two-stroke, which as you can imagine sounded very old school cool inside the tight confines of the arena. It was great to see Tim Trembley back on the race track, and also to witness St-Cyr indoor skills in person. In the end, after a full night of racing, including heat races, semi-final races, LCQ’s, and long main events, it was one of the riders from France, Lefrancois, who took the win in the Open Pro class, and my son, Ayrton taking the win in the 250 Lites class. The main events were very exciting, and as you can imagine I was overcome with pride and joy that my son, who had to come from behind after a bad start in the main event, rode smart and was able to stand on the top step of the podium. I’m not going to lie, he was very nervous heading into this race, but he kept his composure and did what he went there to do, gain some much needed experience, as well as find a little success that he can build on heading into the summer. I think those two boxes were checked and because of that I’m going to give Ayrton my Rider of the Week award. All in all, it was a great weekend filled with many emotions. Thank you to Paul Thibault and his RDL crew for bringing us to this incredible race again, I still can’t believe it had been 28 years since I last went there. On the long drive home yesterday my son said “ I can’t think of any reason why we don’t come back here next year to race.”
Well, that is it for me this week. As I mentioned above, I will do a full Triple Crown Series preview tomorrow. I was going to include it today in my gate drop, but I wanted to dedicate this week column to the Riviere du Loup AX. Finally, Haiden Deegan and Jett Lawrence dominated the opening round of the 2025 Pro Motocross Championships at Fox Raceway. Both riders secured their wins with a 1-1 moto score. This weekend the series heads to Hangtown where the temperatures are expect to be 100F. Good luck to everyone racing this weekend and thank you for reading this week’s Gate Drop. If you have any questions or comments please email me at editor@mxpmag.com.
