Yamaha Motor Canada Presents The Monday Gate Drop

Welcome to another edition of the Yamaha Motor Canada Monday Gate Drop. I hope everyone enjoyed this final weekend of October and I hope all of you are ready for Halloween this week. I love Halloween as my job is usually to stay home and hand out candy. This allows me to see all of the cool costumes that our local kids are wearing. So please be safe and have fun trick or treating on Thursday evening.

Let me start off this week by congratulating Shelby Turner on winning the 2019 AMA Women’s Endurocross Championship this past weekend. As she’s proven on numerous occasions, Shelby can win races anywhere so it’s no surprise to see her find success in Endurocross. She is also one of the nicest people in Canadian moto so I’m sure everyone is very happy to see Shelby win yet another championship. In her latest Social Media post, Shelby thanked all of her supporters and vows to be back next year to defend her title.

So, what did everyone do this past weekend? I spent my weekend in Brantford, Ontario at my son’s first hockey tournament of the season. If your child has never been involved in hockey or any other sport that requires tournaments to be played throughout their season, it’s definitely an interesting experience. People always say that these overnight tournaments, especially early in a season, are a must as they’re good for team bonding. I do believe this to be true in most cases if it’s a team that has players on it that really don’t know each other. An overnight tournament allows the kids to hang out away from the field of play and either swim at the hotel or just hang out in each others’ rooms. This can bring a team closer together, and to do it as a family is a fun experience without question. The downside of course is like anything fun we do these days, it can cost a small fortune to go to one of these tournaments. You see, usually the local hotels have either caught on or have colluded with the tournament organizers and they charge an absolute criminal amount for their rooms. This past weekend in Brantford was no different as our hotel was most certainly nice, but definitely not $180/night nice! Anyway, we had fun this weekend as did our team and of course our team’s parents. Actually, sometimes I wonder if these tournaments are for the kids or for the parents to get away and bond? Maybe it’s both. Oh, the things we do for our kids!

I know I mentioned this last week but since then there have been a couple of Dean Wilson updates. First, there was video released of his scary crash, and in one of his Social Media posts Dean explained exactly what went wrong. Dean said that when he came around to jump this section again (he had jumped it the lap prior with no issues) he hit a slightly different line on the take-off and didn’t get enough ‘pop’ and that is what caused him to come up short and crash. Because the Monster Energy Cup track was designed to be raced both ways, the take-offs and landings were altered compared to what the riders were used to. I’m not saying that this crash wasn’t Dean’s fault as he clearly made a big error, however this is where the riders as a group need to come together on behalf of their own safety and livelihoods. In this day and age there is very little excuse for these tracks not to be in better condition for these riders, and also, why would an event as large as the Monster Energy Cup employ a hoaky concept like running the track in different directions? Dean also stated in his latest post that he not only dislocated his hip but that he also has a fractured pelvis. As long as it’s not a displaced fracture he should be able to recover in minimal time, but this still puts him out for a few months. You sure have to admire Dean’s never die attitude as he’s vowed to be back stronger than ever. Thankfully, he has a factory ride waiting for him when he returns.

One of our own top riders who is currently on the injured reserve list is Jess Pettis. As you all remember he was injured in Montreal back in September and he’s still awaiting his ACL reconstruction surgery. Jess was supposed to have his surgery on October 15^th, but unfortunately, he was sick on that day and was unable to go under the knife. He’s now scheduled for surgery on November 8^th, which will almost be a full two months since his injury. That is very hard to believe for anyone, especially a pro athlete such as Jess. With the average recovery time being about four months post surgery, that puts Jess to hopefully be 100% for the beginning of the 2020 Rockstar Energy Triple Crown Series. My personal feeling is that you won’t see Jess race on Canadian soil until the opening round of the 2020 MXTour Series in late May. From what I’m hearing, Pettis will remain in the 250 class for one more year before making the jump up to the 450 class. Again, my feeling is that unless he has to move up to the 450 class in 2021, I think you might see him stay down in the 250 class one more year. If healthy, Jess will most certainly want to race the West Coast 250SX Series in 2021, which would prevent him from getting a full off-season of testing done on a 450. But this is just conjecture on my part and a lot has to happen before then. First up is getting his knee fixed and then having a great recovery. Good luck on November 8^th Jess!!

In other non-injury news, I had a long chat with Phil Nicoletti last week for a story in the next issue of MXP Magazine. When I called our new Rockstar Energy Triple Crown Champion he was relaxing on his patio with a glass of red wine. After a very long season I think Phil has earned a few glasses of whatever he wants to drink. We spoke for a while and one thing that he mentioned to me was once he gets back in the gym, one of his goals is to get bigger and stronger. I love how these champions never want to stop improving and evolving as riders and as athletes. After a short pause to recover, Phil will be back at it and preparing for 2020. Look for his story when our next issue hits the newsstand next week.

That is it for me this week. I hope everyone has a great week and a fun Halloween. This is the only time that it’s okay for us to dress up and pretend we’re somebody or something else. Have a great week and thank-you for reading.