Greetings! Welcome to another Monday Gate Drop Column, which as always is presented by the awesome folks at Yamaha Motor Canada. As I posted last week, Yamaha is having a year-end sales event to cap off a very successful 2025. Just click on this link and see what Yamaha has to offer in the final weeks of this year. YEAR END SALES EVENT
Let’s begin this week in the great Country which gave us the bands: Abba and Roxette, as well as the store with the hard to put together furniture: Ikea. Yes, I’m talking about the land of the midnight sun, Sweden. When the WSX Championships announced their 2025 series schedule, Sweden seemed like an odd stop to make, as it’s not really known as a SX loving nation. However, I applaud the WSX Series for bringing the sport to new markets and giving fans in places like Argentina and Sweden some live racing to watch. This past weekend in Stockholm, Round 4 of the 2025 World Championships was well received by fans as they packed into 3Arena to watch some of the best SX racers on the planet, do battle. Unfortunately, this round didn’t feature any of the heavy hitters that the opening races of the series saw line up. Riders like Eli Tomac, Cooper Webb, Haiden Deegan, and even Justin Cooper for whatever reason weren’t contracted to go to Sweden. Even the 2024 WSX defending champion Ken Roczen was not on the list of riders this past weekend, but fans were able to see Jason Anderson, Joey Savatgy, and Christian Craig battling it out for the win in the SX1 class. Other than the lack of true star power in the SX1 class, the other issue this round had was the soft dirt that the track crew had to work with. Over the years, we’ve seen some very soft SX tracks, whether it’s been in cites like Seattle, Indianapolis, or even Boston, but the track in Sweden this past weekend was like ‘Hold my beer’ as it was one of the softest SX tracks I’ve ever witnessed. It reminded me of the old Toronto SX tracks from the early 1990s, when the dirt was soft, rutted, and very sticky. These tracks are so hard to ride, and so challenging for the track crews to maintain. Once the racing begins they have very little time to give the track the TLC that it needs. I think both the riders and track crew deserve a ton of credit for doing their best to make the Swedish round a success.
As for the results at Round 4 in Stockholm, Jason Anderson was the star of the show as he took the overall SX1 win, his first on his new Suzuki. This WSX Series has been great for Anderson as its allowed him to not only race test his RMZ450, but also race himself back into shape. If JA21 wants to be competitive next month in the 2026 Monster Energy Supercross Series, these are two areas that he has to work on. Anderson, who normally rides better on hard packed and dry tracks, looked very good on the soft track in Sweden. Thanks to his big win on Saturday night, Anderson is now tied for the SX1 class points lead with Joey Savatgy heading into the final round this weekend in South Africa. It will be a winner-takes-all showdown this weekend in Cape Town, and also don’t count out Christian Craig, who sits just a few points behind the lead two. As for our Canadian SX hero Cole Thompson? Well, sadly Cole had his worst round of the series with a 10th overall in the SX2 class. Cole was not able to get up front off the start in any of the SX2 main events, and in these types of track conditions, good starts were mandatory. Cole will head into the final round 6th in the SX2 class points standings, certainly not the position he wanted to be in, considering he finished 2nd overall last year. When I spoke to Cole several weeks ago in Vancouver, he voiced his concerns about the lack of low-end power on his Bud Racing KX250. Through his pre-series testing trying to get more torque into the engine was an ongoing issue, and according to Cole at Round 2, it just never got resolved. I’m not sure if the team has made improvements since Vancouver, but if they haven’t then this could explain why Cole’s starts, and finishes have been so inconsistent throughout this series. Cole also mentioned to me in Vancouver that he’s really excited to return home after the WSX Series to focus on his 450 riding as he prepares for the remaining rounds of the 2026 AMA Arenacross Series. A series that will be making two stops in Canada, Toronto on January 9/10, and Calgary on January 30/31.
There is one more round of the 2025 WSX Championships that takes place this weekend in South Africa, then in two weeks the AMA Arenacross resumes in Colorado, then it’s Christmas, the beginning of a new year, and then of course Anaheim 1. Things move fast this time of the year, and before we know it, it will be time to go racing again here in Canada. As I mentioned above, the first race of the Canadian season will take place on February 1st in Calgary, as there is an Amateur AX program on the Sunday. Two weeks after that, the Iron Horse AX will be taking place in Rimbey, Alberta, then two months later the 2026 AMO Racing Series kicks off at Gopher Dunes in Ontario. The entire 2026 AMO Racing Schedule looks good, with three big races at Gopher Dunes, Auburn Hills Raceway, and Sand Del Lee to kick things off. AMO Racing will also be returning to Walton Raceway and Motopark in 2026, which is great news for everyone in Ontario. For now though, let’s enjoy this quiet time away from the hustle and bustle of the race track.
Well, that is it for me this week. As we move towards the mid-point of December the real countdown to Christmas Day begins. For my Motovan Canada rider of the Week, I’m going to go in a different direction this week and pick my Dad. This week, my Family and I will be celebrating the sad two-year anniversary of my Dad’s passing, as he left us on December 10th, 2023 after a long battle with Parkinson’s and Dementia. While growing up near Peterborough, Ontario, my Dad was introduced to two-wheels in his early teens when he got a part-time job at a local motorcycle shop. Along with learning to work on bikes, he also learned how to ride them, and soon he was tearing up the back roads and loving every minute of the freedom it provided him. From those days, until his early 70’s, he never stopped riding. Whether it was racing Scrambles in England in his 20’s, racing the Vet Class here in Ontario in his 40’s, or cruising the roads on his Triumph Scrambler in his 60’s and 70’s until he just wasn’t able to ride safely anymore. It’s safe to say that my Dad had a real love affair with anything with two-wheels and he obviously passed that down to me. His final two adventures came just over a year before his passing when he snuck a ride on my Marin Mountain Bike to come out to the back of our property to watch my son Ayrton and I ride. At the time, my Mom had forbidden him to do anything stupid as his balance and reflexes were deteriorating fast. Even though he obviously knew that trying to ride a bicycle was on my Mom’s long list of what she considered ‘Stupid’, he didn’t care as I think he just wanted to ride something with two-wheels at least one more time. Unfortunately, he only made it halfway to our track, suffering a small crash when the trail turned left and he ended up going right. Even though he didn’t make it all the way to his intended destination, I don’t think he cared one bit. In fact, when my wife was walking him back to our house, while pushing the bicycle, no doubt knowing that my Mom was going to lose it on him, all he could say was “I got my balance back.” Dad, we miss you, and we cannot believe it’s been two long years since you left us. Hopefully, wherever you are today, I hope your balance is good, and you’re twisting the throttle and having a good time. Thank you for reading this column, and if you have any comments or questions, please email me at editor@mxpmag.com.
