Good day, and welcome to the Monday Gate Drop, which is once again presented by Yamaha Motor Canada. As we move into the second half of October, the temperatures have cooled and our decent riding days are few and far between. However, since most of us are die hard riders, we will break out our heavy sweatshirts and just keep on going until the ground freezes.
This past weekend the Triple Crown Series travelled to Medicine Hat to begin the Western swing of the series. I did not fly out to Alberta for reasons I’ll give you shortly, but our talented photographer James Lissimore was there taking in all of the festivities. I watched all the action on the RydeTV app on Saturday night from the comfort of a hotel bed. My son was playing in a hockey tournament in London, Ontario, so on Saturday night we tuned in. Despite the track looking a little on the less technical side (don’t tell #911 in the Vet class that) the action was decent and a few riders stood out. Obviously, Mitchell Harrison looked good and once again took home both main event wins. Harrison is riding well and has this indoor racing dialed. It was great to see Jacob Piccolo qualify first in both classed in the afternoon, unfortunately he wasn’t feeling well and only lasted one main event before calling it a night. This isn’t the first time that Piccolo has struggled with his health on race day so, it leads me (and most people I think) to believe that there must be something serious going on. Perhaps a food allergy or something? This kid should be winning races on a regular basis right now, instead he’s not even lining up for them. Hopefully he gets his health figured out and is able to come out swinging in Calgary.
One BC rider who does have things figured out right now is Julien Benek. After announcing last week that he had parted ways with the PRMX Kawasaki Team, he showed up in Medicine Hat on his ‘well used’ practice bike. Benek has been training hard in recent weeks and on Saturday night he looked great. He’s always been a solid indoor rider, so I think this type of racing just comes naturally to him. However, riding and racing are sometimes two different things and one doesn’t always lead to success for the other. Benek rode great, and almost caught Harrison in the late stages of the 450 main event. Quinn Amyotte also rode solid on Saturday night and found himself on the podium in the 250 class. Young Blake Davies also impressed everyone with his incredible ride in the 450 class main event. Blake grabbed a good start and then held his own against his much older competition to finish up in third overall. Now the Triple Crown Series takes a weekend off before the final round in Calgary on November 4th.
Moving on to one the coolest events that has ever happened in Canada in recent memory, and that is the Legends of Canadian MX dinner that took place on Friday evening at Gopher Dunes. This new and ultra-cool event was the brain child of Lawrence Hacking, who this past winter went snow biking with a small group of our former top Canadian MX riders. Lawrence was joined in the BC mountains by Glen Nicholson, Doug Hoover, Darren Sharuga, and the man himself, Ross Pederson. After this trip, Lawrence came up with the idea to try and get not just these talented former riders together again, but also invite many other legends, and anyone who wanted to attend a party to celebrate our former MX heroes. Lawrence then contacted Frank Schuster, who for the past few years has hosted his fall Vet/Vintage event at Gopher Dunes, and together they decided to have a dinner and get together as part of Frank’s annual race. It was a well-received idea and within two weeks all of the tickets were sold out. It was an amazing evening of seeing old friends and old competitors, and every single person in attendance left with a smile on their face. By the sounds of it this dinner could be an annual or bi-annual event, so if you missed it this year, please try and attend in the future.
For myself, Friday evening brought out many different emotions. On one hand, it was so nice to see the faces of everyone there, but on the other hand it was a stark reminder of just how fast time goes by. Certain people like Al Logue and Terry Collins, I haven’t seen in almost 30 years. Larry Bastedo was also in attendance, and during the evening we talked about the Steel City Rider events he and Jim Kelly used to attend at my family farm. Dave Beatty was there and when I think of him, I remember how fast he was at the old Hully Gully track. Steve Bulyovsky was there, and it’s always great to catch up with him and his buddy Dave Marcella. Dave was badly injured in a dirt bike crash last year so it was nice to see him looking so good. There were so many legends in attendance, and as you can imagine the bench racing was at an all-time high. But the man of the hour was Ross “Rollerball” Pederson as he and Sharuga flew out from Alberta to be there with everyone. Ross is by far the winningest Canadian MX rider of all-time, and in recent years he hasn’t made too many public appearances. When he was introduced on Friday evening he received a standing ovation that you could tell brought out some serious emotion in him. During his time as a pro-rider there was no one better, tougher, more ruthless, harder working, or more successful than Ross. However, this weekend he was relaxed, funny, happy, and really just a joy to be around, as was everyone else there.
With his final season of racing taking place thirty years ago, I was not only fortunate enough to have lined up beside him on the start gate for four seasons, but I was also one of the few who got to know him really well. With him racing his final seasons as a pro, and me just starting out in the pro class, he always used to joke that he was my mentor. In the summer of 1992, after the Austin, Manitoba National, my Dad and I drove to Medicine Hat and stayed with Ross for a week. It was a life changing week for me as I was able to see first-hand just how hard Ross worked at his craft. For him, racing was a full-time job and he treated every aspect of it as such. From training, to riding, to his finances, everything revolved around racing. That week I was in awe of Ross’s workload, and I think by the time we got to the next race I was completely exhausted from riding and training with him. At the time, I had just turned 19 and other than riding I hadn’t done much off-the-bike training. Ross showed me that week what it took to win races, and although it would take a few years before I would win some national races, that week at his house was crucial for my development as a pro-rider. We actually joked about that week on Friday night, and he remembered putting me through his mini “Ross boot camp”.
Another former champion that was in attendance this weekend was Doug “The Sweeper” Hoover. I love how some of our former top pro’s had nicknames. Anyway, Doug was there and it was great to catch up with him. He was retired by the time I turned pro so I didn’t get to line up against him, but growing up he was one of my MX idols. Between he and Kevin Moore, those were the two riders who I tried to emulate on a dirt bike. Whenever they came out to local Ontario races I would stand track side and watch their every move on the track. If they did something cool, I would come home and try and do it myself. I remember one local race at Moto Park when the start used to be downhill followed by a 180 degree right hand turn. Anyway, Hoover was on the inside and ended up getting stuck on top of the stack of tires that marked the inside of the first turn. While sitting on the tires, Doug kept the throttle on while he feathered the clutch, and kept the bike moving. He didn’t come out first, but the time-saving maneuver kept him up front and he ended up winning the moto. I thought it was so cool that when I got home from that race, I gathered up a bunch of old tires that we had lying around our farm, stacked them up, and then practiced doing the same thing as Hoover. My Dad wondered what the heck I was doing until I explained it to him. He thought it was cool, but in typical Dad fashion, told me not to do it for too long or I’d burn the clutch up. Anyway, those are just some of the memories I have of some of our former champions, and it was great to see them all, not only on Friday night, but also on Saturday when they took to the track for the first time in years! What a night and what a weekend! Thank you to the Schuster Family for their hospitality, to the local Lion’s Club for the dinner, and to everyone who came out to celebrate the Legends of Canadian MX.
Well, I’m going to end this Monday Gate Drop on that note. I hope everyone has a great week as we lead up to Halloween early next week. Thank you for reading, and if you have any comments or questions please email me at editor@mxpmag.com.
