FeaturesMonday Gate Drop

The Monday Gate Drop Presented By Yamaha Motor Canada

Greetings! I hope everyone is having a great May long weekend. Hopefully, the weather has been good where you live. Here in Southern Ontario, we’re in the midst of some early summer temperatures, and it’s been one of those incredible weekends to be outside doing just about anything. Finally, is it me or is May flying by? Before we know it will be time to jump on an airplane to fly out to Calgary and begin our western adventure.

Less than two weeks until we’re at the most scenic track in Canada for Round 1.

That leads me perfectly into what I want to talk about first today, the opening round of the 2024 Triple Crown Series. As I write this we’re just under two weeks away from the first gate drop of the summer at the scenic and iconic Wild Rose MX Park. This track has hosted the opening round several times over the years, so it’s no stranger to the hype and pageantry of Round 1. In fact, with the track being right in the city, I think it’s a great place to host the opening round of our National Series, as it’s close to hotels and restaurants. On the Friday evening before the race, Kourtney Lloyd is hosting a Team Canada fundraising party which is open to anyone who wants to buy a ticket. It should be a fun evening as I would expect that all of the top riders will be there hanging out and signing autographs. Then on Saturday evening, I believe there is going to be a press conference at the Blackfoot Inn featuring several of the 250, 450, and WMX top riders. The Triple Crown Series crew did this last year in Edmonton, and it was a fun and informative event. After that, everyone will head to bed and get some sleep as Sunday is the big day!

The GDR Honda riders were looking good and feeling good on Wednesday at Gopher Dunes. Photo by James Lissimore

To officially get the hype train on track, last week the Honda Canada GDR Fox Racing Team held their annual team intro/media day at Gopher Dunes. The press conference began at 10am sharp as it was being broadcast live on the RydeTV App. We were able to hear from all of the GDR Honda Team members, including the three riders, Dylan Wright, Tyler Medaglia, and Tiger Wood. We also heard from Team Owner Derek Schuster, newly promoted team General Manager Ryan Lockhart, and Honda Canada Sales and Marketing Manager Larry Lamanna. Jetwerx President Justin Thompson also made an appearance and spoke about how excited he is to be heading into their seventh year of running the Triple Crown Series. The focus in 2024 will be solely outdoor MX as there will be no indoor rounds. Justin told me later in the day that he’s going to miss the AX/SX portion of the Triple Crown Series this year, but that he hopes to bring these races back in the future. Finally, it sounds as though the WSX Championships is going to take another shot at holding a round in Vancouver later this year. As you may recall, they tried this last year, only to cancel and move the round to Europe. Hopefully, this time things will work as Vancouver is tentatively scheduled to kick off the 2024 Series. Other than that, the riders of course said they’re all feeling good, and are ready to go. Dylan had a solid off-season training in Florida, and if his speed a few weeks ago at the AMO Gopher Dunes race is any indication, he’s riding better than ever. Tyler, who is now 37 years old, is looking forward to battling it out with the kids in the 250 class, as well as his fellow Vet rider Kaven Benoit. Tyler spent most of his winter in Florida, and since he’s been back home in Nova Scotia, he and his son, as well as his brother in-law Mitch Cooke have been riding in every condition imaginable. The final member of the GDR Honda trio is young Australian Tiger Wood. Tiger was a late edition to the team, but he says he’s ready to go and he’s looking forward to learning as much as possible this summer. After the press conference, we had some lunch and then the boys hit the track for a few fast laps. It was a great day, and it certainly got everyone there excited for the the series to begin.

Here is a link to all the 2024 Triple Crown Series Teams:

National Teams – Motocross Performance Magazine (mxpmag.com)

Meet your 2024 KTM Canada Red Bull Racing Team!

In other Triple Crown Series team news. The KTM Canada Red Bull Racing Team officially announced their team this past week. Jess Pettis and Kaven Benoit are of course back for another season. Josiah Natzke will join Pettis this summer in the 450 class, and Eve Brodeur will bring her plethora of Canadian WMX titles back to the KTM Team. I was able to watch Pettis, Benoit, and Natzke ride in person at GPF back in March, and at the time, all three looked great. Since then, they’ve spent the past two months training together, so the team chemistry must be strong. This past weekend, the KTM Team lined up behind a starting gate for the first time this year as they competed at a Quebec Provincial event. Benoit took the win with a 1-2 moto score, Natzke went 2-3, and Pettis won the final moto of day, …With the KTM Team hitting the race track this weekend, this means that all of the Triple Crown Series riders will have at least one race under their belt heading into the opening round in Calgary. I spoke a few weeks back at how important it to get as many races in as possible before the Nationals begin. Especially, when the opening takes place on the technical Wild Rose MX track. It’s been a cool and wet spring in the Calgary area, and with the weather always being unpredictable in early June, who knows what conditions will be like on June 2nd. However, even on it’s best days, the Wild Rose MX is a very challenging track to race on, and as a rider, you ALWAYS have to stay on your toes. With the big jumps, steep elevation changes, deep ruts, and surrounding visual distractions, the Wild Rose MX track is a difficult one to find “flow” on, so the tendency is to ride tight, and that can lead to premature fatigue. Not to mention that Calgary sits about 2000 feet higher in elevation then most of our riders live at during the week. All of these items, along with the general anxiety of it being the opening round of the Triple Crown Series, are going to make this a very tough race. I truly believe this is going to be the most exciting Triple Crown Series we’ve witnessed in years, as all of the teams and riders are ready to go. Both the 250 and 450 classes are deep with talented riders from across the Globe. Also, our WMX riders have been training hard so it’s going to be fun to watch all of them try to dethrone Eve Brodeur. 

Check out this old RDL AX podium featuring JSR and Newf!

In some other two wheeled news. Ben Young dominated the opening round of the CSBK Superbike Series this past weekend at Shannonville Raceway. Tyler Medaglia won the opening round of the Ontario Off-Road XC race at Gopher Dunes. As I mentioned above, we saw Tyler at the GDR Honda Team Intro on Wednesday, and then he stuck around to do his team proud at their home track race. This coming weekend we see the 2024 Pro Motocross Championships kick-off at Fox Raceway in California. Obviously, Jett Lawrence is the favourite to repeat as the 450 class champion, but who does everyone have to win the 250 class? I’m sure riders like Deegan, Kitchen, and Shimoda will be fast, but right now I’m picking Tom Vialle to win the 250 class title. Finally, the Riviere Du Loup AX will take place this weekend. For 2024, it has been expanded again to a two-night race, with riders entered from all over the globe. For over 40 years this has been one of the most iconic races in Canada, and it’s great to see it survive the Pandemic. It’s too bad the RDL AX is scheduled so close to the opening round of the Triple Crown Series, or you might see more top Canadian pro riders attend. Anyway, good luck to everyone, and hopefully this event keeps going for many more years.

There is no reason to think that Jett Lawrence isn’t the 450 class favourite heading into Fox Raceway.

That is it for me this week. Thank you for reading and if you have any questions or comments, please email me at editor@mxpmag.com. Enjoy your week, and please ride safe. Also, stay tuned this week as I’ll dive deeper into each class at the upcoming Triple Crown Series. Have a great week!

Chris Pomeroy

1989 Rookie-of-the-year and former nationally ranked pro racer who turned into a dirt oriented scribe

Related Articles

Back to top button