Greetings! I hope everyone had a great weekend, regardless of what you and your friends and family did. My weekend was spent at one of the most popular sand tracks on the planet, Gopher Dunes. Other than perhaps RJ Motosports back in the 1990s, Gopher Dunes has been the host of the Ontario MX season opener for some time. Despite the difficult track conditions that can make the first race of the year a real challenge, Gopher Dunes is the perfect place to hold an April race in Ontario. It’s usually one of the mildest parts of the Province, The paddock is spacious and dry, and I think after so many years everyone is accustom to travelling there to kick off their season. It was another great season opener as most of the classes were full, and the racing was pretty exciting on both Saturday and Sunday.
So, here is a question for all the parents and pit-crews out there who spent the weekend at either Gopher Dunes, or Whispering Pines Raceway near Kamloops. Am I the only one (who didn’t race by the way) who feels completely haggard today? I know, we focus on getting our riders prepared for the season, but there should be a training program for parents and mechanics to get us prepared. There could be a training session that consists of taking 20,000 steps on uneven ground, or even a session of standing in one spot for hours, while trying to stay warm. Oh, and don’t forget the mental fatigue that comes from being a moto parent. The stress, the worrying, the emotional ups and downs that come with a day of cheering, not just your own kid(s), but other riders that you like too. The meal prep, the moments you have to quickly transition from parent, to mechanic, to riding coach, to mental coach, to photographer/videographer, to cheerleader, and then finally, to tired chauffeur that ensures everyone gets home safe! When you factor all this into just one or two days, then it’s no wonder the Monday after a race is a challenging day for the entire family. But, I’m sure you’ll agree that come Tuesday we’ll all look forward to the next race weekend!
The opening round yesterday at Gopher Dunes also featured a well stacked Pro-Am class with top riders like Dylan Wright, Tanner Ward, Sebastien Racine, Quinn Amyotte, Tanner Scott, Christopher Blackmer, and newcomer to Canadian MX, young Australian rider Tiger Wood (just to name a few). The WLTN Kawasaki Team also brought their large race truck to Gopher Dunes so that their two riders and crew had a warm and spacious place to work out of. Tanner Ward has been home for a month after a solid off-season training down south, but Quinn just arrived back in Canada on Friday, and drove straight to Gopher Dunes. As you can imagine, Quinn was very cold all weekend as the temperature didn’t get above 10c. So good on the WLTN Kawasaki Team for making the effort and enduring the extra cost in bringing the entire team out to race the opening AMO round. Also, as we were leaving the last night, Tanner Ward was out testing his new TCD Suspension on the super rough Gopher Dunes track. Even local Ontario riders don’t get the opportunity to ride Gopher Dunes when it really beat up. In fact, at the end of the day when I was talking to Dylan Wright, he said that he was getting up early this morning and doing two 30 minute motos before the track got groomed. These guys are savages, but, if you want to be the best this is what you have to do.
Speaking of Dylan Wright. He was obviously the fastest rider at Gopher Dunes yesterday, and if it weren’t for a broken chain he would’ve won all three motos and taken home the big prize money. However, in my opinion, whether he meant to or not, Dylan sent a message yesterday, especially in the final moto, that he is more than ready to once again defend his 450 Triple Crown Series Championship. I will actually go out on a limb and say that he looked better yesterday than I’ve ever seen him at Gopher Dunes. He didn’t just look fast and intense, that part of his riding is always there, but if you watched him closely yesterday then you probably noticed some little style subtleties with the way he was riding the rough track. The way he was hopping over breaking bumps and jumping into berms, it was very ‘Jett Lawrence’ like and when I ask him about it last night, he just smiled and said “Well, I’ve been riding with Jett for two winters now, hopefully I’ve picked up something from him.” But all joking aside, Dylan looked good yesterday, and it certainly got me excited for the impending battle this summer between he and riders like Ward, Pettis, Natzke, and Harrison. Another rider who stood out yesterday was Sebastien Racine. He was riding a YZ450 and he certainly looked comfortable on the big bike. I know his MX101 Yamaha Team has been searching high and low for a 450 rider (I hear they’ve found one and the news will be coming today), but with the way that Racine rode yesterday, he could easily be their 450 guy. I was talking to Kevin Tyler last month at the Daytona SX, and he mentioned how impressed he was with the amount of training Racine has been doing. He also told me that he considered putting Racine on a 450 after watching him ride one that previous week in Florida. But he was hesitant because of his inexperience, and that he thinks that Racine is going to be a championship contender in the 250 class this summer. I agree with Kevin, it’s too early to put Racine on a 450 full time, but it’s sure good to know that in the near future, he will be ready! Tanner Ward and Quinn Amyotte also looked good yesterday, Quinn was the top finishing 250 rider. Finally, the GDR Honda Team announced that young Australian Tiger Wood will join Dylan Wright and Tyler Medaglia under the tent this summer. As Tiger said in an interview with me on @mxpmag, he and his family were looking for a way to bridge the gap between amateur racing and pro racing, and that racing in the Triple Crown Series seemed like a perfect way to do that. Tiger seems like one of the nicest kids I’ve met in sometime, and it’s going to be great to have him as part of our series. He’s also very fast, so I feel like he’ll be battling for top five and even some podiums finishes as he gets comfortable in the 250 class. Anyway, Racine was impressive yesterday, as was every rider who braved the cool temperatures and rough Gopher Dunes track. Thank you to AMO Racing and the Gopher Dunes crew for another great opening weekend, and now it’s onto Auburn Hills Raceway for Round 2 on the May 4,5 weekend.
Even though I don’t really want to, I guess I will talk about the Nashville SX that took place this past weekend. I don’t know about everyone else, but I was bummed that the series didn’t learn from last year’s Nashville SX, when multiple top riders crashed and got injured, and build a better track for Round 14. Especially, with Jett Lawrence and Cooper Webb tied for the lead in the 450SX class. Maybe it’s just the Nashville soil that dictates the type of track that can be built? I don’t know? But it looked as though there was weird sections built in Nashville that the riders haven’t seen all series long. The whoops were big and spaced apart, even the double coming back across the start was a little different. In the end, Jett Lawrence won the 450SX main event, and he certainly deserved to. Jett was the fastest and smoothest rider and it was good to see him stop the bleeding. Tomac rode well, but didn’t have the speed of Jett. Cooper Webb had one of his mysteriously poor main events and finished a distant third. Thankfully, we still have a points battle in the 450SX class, but heading into this weekend in Philly, we probably might not have Chase Sexton. He crashed hard in the main event when a rock hit his throttlebody and caused his KTM to sputter on the face of a double. Ken Roczen is also most likely out after his bizarre and unfortunate crash. Cameron McAdoo lost the points lead in the 250SX East class after a practice crash. Levi Kitchen broke some ribs after a crash early in the main event. He remounted and made a great charge forward, but he also lost his points lead in the 250SX West class. It was complete carnage in Nashville, and I think a local country singer could write a good song about the misery that took place inside Nissan Stadium on Saturday night. Now the series heads to a new stop in Philadelphia, where the weather looks great all week long.
Well, that is it for me this week. I hope everyone enjoys this final week of April, and I hope you all receive some great riding weather. In closing, it looks like the opening round of the 2024 Future West MX Series was a massive success out in Kamloops. With a record number of entries (over 550), the race season is off to a solid start in BC. Finally, I want to send a “Get well” out to pro rider Max Filipek, who took a hard hit in a crash during the start of the second Pro-AM moto yesterday at Gopher Dunes. The race had to be red flagged while Ron Cameron and his trusty medical crew tended to Max. According to his dad, Max has a broken collarbone, a concussion, and is also very beat up and bruised. Other than that, he’s okay. Get well Max! Also, “Get well” wishes go out to the poor rider who was injured in his first moto on Saturday in the 50 plus class. Thank you for reading and if you have any comments or questions, please feel free to email me at editor@mxpmag.com.