Yamaha Motor Canada and Fox Racing Presents Words From the Blu Cru- Marco Cannella

Last week I was out at Moto Park testing all of the 2017 Yamahas. It was a great day spent with awesome people just riding dirt bikes. It doesn’t get much better than that. It made me realize exactly how I felt when we first started racing and why we all started. I still get that feeling every time I ride and race, which keeps me coming back for more and more. It’s pretty amazing to see how far I have come in the last 10 years of racing and see how much I have accomplished, but there’s always more. I’ve been getting closer and closer to my goals and dreams, which keeps me always pushing forward and improving on each piece of the puzzle.

This past weekend was the first round of the Canadian AX Tour, which was a great experience for me. I was fortunate enough to pit with the OTSFF Rockstar team and Chris Blose. I definitely learned a lot from that and got a small taste of what the pro scene is like. The racing was very different; it is much tighter and usually you are always battling with someone, which helps you to ride under pressure and learn to not let the race behind you affect your riding or make you nervous. Also, anything can happen in arena-cross, cramming so many riders in such a tight area. I was riding practice, which seemed like I was by myself, when out of nowhere another rider had gotten out of control in the whoops and flew across into my lane. He was going the opposite way and took me out.

All in all, I had a great time racing and I think a lot of people can benefit from dabbling on those types of tracks and racing. Also, it is fun riding a totally different type of track after riding only outdoors all year.   The Barrie round was the last AX round I will be doing. I qualified 4th, and was again blessed with being under the tent with OTSFF; I am now part of the Rockstar Energy racing program. I would like to thank Iain Hayden and Andre Laurin for being in my corner. Now it’s time to focus on preparing for the Mini O’s, so I’m off to the GPF Training Facility to work my magic.