Honda Canada Racing Presents the Monday Gate Drop

Good day and welcome to the final Honda Canada Racing Monday Gate Drop for the month of February. With March almost here, hopefully so is spring and the beginning of another cherished riding season. Each year in Ontario the first track to open is Gopher Dunes Raceway, located just south of Tillsonburg. With its deep sand base, the winter frost has trouble penetrating the soil. This makes for optimal spring riding conditions the moment the temperature rises above the freezing mark. Gopher Dunes is also the home of the Honda Canada Red Rider off-road program, so if you ever need a bike to rent or a place to ride, head to Gopher Dunes.

Before I get into this past weekend’s opening round of the 2018 Rockstar Energy Triple Crown Series in Abbotsford, let me quickly talk about the Tampa Supercross. First off, it was awful to see Cole Seely get injured on Saturday night. Obviously, I don’t know Cole at all, but he just seems like one of the good guys in our sport. However, regardless of whether you’re a good guy or a rider that no one likes, it’s been hard this season to see so many of the top riders get injured. So, what are the reasons behind this rash of injuries? Are the tracks too technical? Are the riders just making mistakes? Or is it just one of those years? Well, I think you could look at all three of these things as the culprit.

As we’ve seen on some of the tracks in 2018, there have been sections that have specifically caused problems. In Tampa, Seely definitely made a mistake and came up short in one of the rhythm sections. That is on him and I’m sure he knew it the moment he took off in the air. However, the jump he landed on had zero room for error that was built into it. Just as we see with the landings for the triples, or for the finish line jumps, every jump in SX needs some room for error built into it. This might have saved Seely from his painful injury, but I suppose it wouldn’t have save Roczen from his broken hand a few weeks back. This sport appears to be going through a transformation as the old, more experienced guard (with the exception of Chad Reed) has moved on. I mean, did we ever see Ryan Dungey make these types of crucial errors on the race track? They were few and far between, for sure. The riders and the sport of supercross are changing very rapidly and the tracks have to change with them. Like they do in aviation, each crash or incident should be looked at thoroughly and a reason for that incident should be documented. Hopefully this is being done as we speak as it’s the only way to make Supercross safer. Yes, Cole Seely made a mistake and he has to own up to that, but perhaps there were contributing factors to his crash that could be analyzed and changes could be made? Anyway, let’s all prey that no one else gets injured for the rest of the series, and also, congratulations to Chad Reed and becoming the new iron man of Supercross. His 228 main events add up to roughly 4,560 intense laps of racing on the most technical tracks on the planet. Those numbers are very impressive, for sure. I just hope he can get himself back into shape and find a little more speed so he’s able to give us another 30 or so main events.

When it was all groomed the Abbotsford track was a wolf in sheep’s clothing. Photo by James Lissimore

In keeping with the philosophy that change is good and that as humans we all thrive in an ever-changing environment, I’m going to do my best to remain positive in my reflective thoughts from the opening round of the 2018 Rockstar Energy Triple Crown Series. I mean, from the start of the weekend until Kyle Beaton took the final load of dirt (I think it was dirt) off the floor of the Abbotsford Arena, every single rider, mechanic, media person, Jetwerx staff member, announcer and parent worked their butts off. Whatever your task was this past weekend, my hat goes off to you. Maybe I’m not at the Chad Reed level for indoor events raced, but I have raced a few in my day. And, I have raced more than one where the soil was incredibly soft and rutted. However, I have never witnessed conditions like we saw on Saturday in BC. I’m not sure what happened to the dirt in the weeks leading up to the event as I heard a few different stories, but it honestly looked like it was dredged up from the bottom of the nearby Fraser River. As I said, I’m not sure what happened, but I do know that the Jetwerx crew have been doing indoor events for a decade and they know exactly what they’re doing when it comes to getting good dirt. So, for the conditions to be this bad, someone definitely mislead them as to what the dirt would be like. To walk through the pit area and smell coolant and burnt clutches, and to see some teams changing clutches, while others were out in the cold washing bikes, it was like a mud race and a AX came together in that small area, and that was just the pro teams. Outside in the amateur pit was another story all together as they had to deal with half a foot of snow. Anyway, there is no way to sugar coat what the conditions were like. They were awful and no one knew it better than the Jetwerx crew. In the end, they did their best to give the riders a track that they could at least race on, and for most of the large crowd, they didn’t seem to care what the conditions were like, they just were there to watch some racing.

Colton Facciott was focused all day long and was able to grab the 450 win at the opening round. Photo by James Lissimore

One of the things that was very cool about Saturday was that despite the adverse conditions, all of the riders and teams were very positive. Even the older riders like Colton Facciotti told me that while the track might not have been perfect, it was still racing and that he was having fun trying to get around it. Obviously, Colton’s positive attitude paid off as he holeshotted the 450 main event and never looked back. As reported a few months ago, Colton is now back with his old trainer Todd Schumlick and it seems to be paying off. At 29-years-old, Colton is definitely on the backside of his professional racing career, but it appears that he is trying to make the absolute most of these final years. In two weeks, Colton will be lining up at the Daytona SX and will be attempting to make his first ever 450 main event. With his skill level, his fitness, and his current state of mind, I can see Colton not only making the main event in Daytona, but I can see him putting his red Honda inside the top ten. Regardless of how he finishes, it will be very cool to see him lining up at the toughest SX of the year.

Carson Brown was fast all day long and took the first 250 main event of the 2018 season in Abbotsford. Photo by James Lissimore

With Colton winning the 450 main event in Abbotsford, the other big winner of the night was Cycle North Honda rider Carson Brown. This was the first time I have seen Carson ride in person and I think that this kid is fast. Even after running into bike issues during his heat race, which caused him to DNF and then receive a very poor gate pick for the 250 main event, Carson came out swinging, holeshotted the main event, and just like Facciotti, never looked back. It was a great ride by the young kid and I hope he’s planning on racing this entire series. Behind Brown, newly signed Kawasaki rider Shawn Maffenbeier rode incredibly smart to finish in second. During the early part of the main event it was actually Marco Cannella who was running in a solid second place, before sliding out and dropping back. All day long, Cannella rode with the wherewithal of an experienced veteran. I can’t wait to see how this kid does in 2018 aboard his MX101 FXR Racing Yamaha.

Cole Thompson was also fast in Abbotsford and was catching Facciotti before he fell. Round 2 in Calgary is going to be epic. Photo by James Lissimore

When all was said and done, the opening round of the 2018 Rockstar Energy Triple Crown Series was a definitely an unforgettable event. For months and years to come, everyone will remember February 24, 2018 and the opening round of this new series. Yes, there will be some bikes to rebuild this week and I’m sure a lot of negative comments surrounding this event. But, in the end it was just really cool to see professional racing in this country this early in the year. Onwards and upwards they say, and now it’s onto Calgary in two and half weeks for Round 2. Before I go, I also want to give some credit to all of the amateur riders who raced on Saturday. From the 50cc kids, to the Intermediate riders, every rider who braved those miserable track conditions deserves a ton of credit. Sometimes to become a better rider you have to ride in conditions that are far from perfect. Just look at Kaven Benoit who competed this weekend in the opening round of the US GNC Series in South Carolina. Benoit finished in 14th I believe, which is very impressive. With spring almost in our grasp, I hope everyone has a great week and a safe week.