Yamaha Motor Canada Presents The Monday Gate Drop

Good day, and welcome to another edition of the Yamaha Motor Canada Monday Gate Drop. If you take a quick peek at the calendar you’ll notice that this second to last Monday before Christmas. I honestly cannot believe that we’ve almost reached the end of this crazy and unforgettable year. It’s been a wild 365 days and by the sounds of it, we’re not quite out of the woods yet. So, keep being safe, and let’s all enjoy the lead up to the most special day of the season.

Depending on where you live in this great country of ours you might be back under full lockdown once again, or facing some form of restrictions. You can argue until the sun goes down whether or not these restrictions or lockdowns work? Back in March, it was all about doing our part to flatten the curve for two weeks. At the time, everyone bought in and adhered to that request, businesses closed and the country basically stopped moving. Since that time, everyone, including businesses of all sizes have adapted to this new ‘normal’ and we’ve done our best to live our lives. This latest lockdown couldn’t come at a worse time as many businesses were no doubt looking forward to a busy holiday season to try and recoup some of their lost income. Even though I live well north of Toronto, my county is part of a region that borders the northwestern part of the city and the main hotspots of the Covid-19 virus. Because of my location, as of today, we are back in the ‘Red Status” and have to deal with more restrictions for at least 28 days. Our local Minor Hockey is shut down, even though it was running smooth and safe, all activities are also shutdown over the holidays so kids now have even less to do. I think most saw this coming as cases have been on the rise (mostly because of most testing) and with the holidays right around the corner, it feels like the authorities want people to remain close to home. If one region is in the “Red’ or locked down, and another region an hour away isn’t, then obviously that encourages people when they’re off work over the holidays to travel. Anyway, it is what it is and hopefully, once we get through the holidays then the early part of 2021 will be different.

The good news is that in our industry, bike sales and the sale of products is still off of the charts. I was speaking to one OEM last week and they informed me that as of right now they have no more 2021 dirt bikes left to sell. Their dealer network is sold out with current sales and pre-orders. So, if you have a new 2021 model then considered yourself fortunate, if you don’t and you want one, you had better act fast. Bike sales have definitely been unexpectedly crazy since May and they don’t appear to be slowing down anytime soon. It will be interesting to see what happens in the next six months and beyond and you’d think the bubble has to burst at some point? The downside of this fire sale of dirt bikes and products is that the marketing departments of some of these companies, not all, but some, see this as a great opportunity to spend less money on everything to do with marketing. These decisions are frustrating and difficult to digest as marketing includes everything from team and event sponsorship to ad sales for media outlets. If you have a product that is basically selling itself, then why spend any more than you have to on marketing that product. I mean, it all makes sense from a financial point of view but it doesn’t make it less frustrating for people that rely on those marketing dollars. I’ve been in this industry in some capacity for over 40 years now and getting everyone to work together and find a certain balance has always been extremely difficult. And that doesn’t appear to be changing anytime soon.

In keeping with the good news theme. I hope you’ve been reading my weekly Jess Pettis reports about his time down at the Baker’s Factory. Jess is doing great down there and so far he’s adapting well to the regimented training schedule that Aldon Baker has for all of his riders. With being a two-time 250MX Champion, Jess has obviously never skipped a step when it comes to training and working hard on his craft. So as Jess has told us over the past few weeks, the amount of training isn’t new to him, what is new is the overall structure of everything at the Baker’s Factory. With just over a month now until the opening round of the Monster Energy Supercross Series in Houston, I’m sure things will get even more intense for Jess and all of the riders at the Baker’s Factory. I will be speaking to him again tonight, so look for the latest Jess Pettis Report tomorrow.

Well, that is it for me this week. I hope everyone has a great week and most of all a healthy week. Last week we reached out to Ryan Lockhart and asked him three random questions. As always, Newf had some great answers and he said that he wants to do it again this week. So, if you have any questions that you want to ask the Swiss Army knife of Canadian moto, please send me an email at chris@mxpmag.com. Have a great week and please stay safe!