Yamaha Motor Canada Presents The Monday Gate Drop

Good day, and welcome to another edition of the Yamaha Motor Canada Monday Gate Drop. As we’ve witnessed thus far in both the 250SX East as well as the 250SX West Series, the Star Racing Yamaha riders have been dominant at almost every round in 2021. Now with two rounds remaining in both series, it’s time to really cheer on the Blu Cru riders as they try and close out their championships.

So before I get to what happened in Atlanta on Saturday evening, or Cameron McAdoo’s incredible crash last week, please let me talk for a moment about the mess we’re in still with this seemingly never-ending pandemic. As I’m sure you all remember, last March when the crap first hit the fan with Covid-19, we were forced to shut everything down and stay at home for two weeks while we “flatten the curve.” A year later these three words sound almost comical considering where we are now and what was announced in Ontario on Friday. Now, regardless of your views on this pandemic and what needs to be done to rid us of it, when it is finally over and we get back to our regularly scheduled programming, the one big thing that I believe most of us will agree on is that Governments at all levels in this country have failed us miserable during Covid-19. Lockdowns, more lockdowns, stay at home orders, kids not being allowed to play sports or attend school. The list goes on and on with the only real end game being vaccines. However, we don’t have nearly enough at the moment thanks to the incompetence of, you guessed it, our duly elected Government officials. Now, in Ontario at least, thanks to the latest announcement on Friday all of our public tracks were forced to close until further notice and racing postponed yet again. 

This means that unless things change drastically in the coming weeks, Ontario residents are not permitted to leave their homes unless they’re going out for a little exercise or something essential. This is order is currently in place until May 20, unless there is a major turnaround in the number of Covid-19 cases. This morning AMO Racing released their updated schedule that has the opening Ontario Provincial Series event moved to the May 22/23 weekend at Sand Del Lee, just two days after this latest stay-at-home order is set to expire. This is great news and I hope it all happens, but with such tight restrictions still in place it’s beginning to feel like the 2021 Regional and National race season is going to end up looking a lot like it did last year, with gates not dropping until June and July. It’s a truly sad situation and I don’t think anyone thought we’d still be in the position where we’d have to close practice tracks, cancel races, and be told we shouldn’t leave our homes. What makes it even more frustrating is to see our friends in the USA already on the slow road to normal. Sporting events in most cities are allowing limited fans in to watch games, businesses are opening up, and according to a stat released yesterday, almost 40% of all Americans have received at least one vaccination shot, and just over 25% are fully vaccinated. Throw in a little herd immunity and it’s no wonder life in the USA is beginning to return to something that resembles normal. Yes, there still are Covid-19 cases, especially with these new variants, but their full lockdowns have ended. Here is an excellent article I read over the weekend from Maclean’s Magazine that talks about how and why we’re still in dire straights with Covid-19: https://www.macleans.ca/opinion/how-did-it-come-to-this/?fbclid=IwAR2hh_84V92lkPp5foU0iG1xKfjq_5E8f7rTQSDzxoo608ZbRaH8fQ7s3l4

Anyway, enough about the mess that appears to not want to end. Let’s move to another mess and that was Cameron McAdoo’s week in Atlanta. I for one began to lose count of how many times this poor kid hit the Atlanta soil. There was last Tuesday and his massive crash into the face of the tunnel jump, then with his battered body still sore he took another digger during qualifying on Saturday. This crash, although not as spectacular, appeared to hurt McAdoo even more than he was already hurting. Then, just when you thought his string of bad luck might be over, he got all sideways coming out Turn 2 during the start of the 250SX West main event and came together in the air with poor Chris Blose who had nowhere to go but down. At that point, the 250SX West main event was red-flagged for the second race in a row while the medics attended to Blose. Although Blose had to be Medivac to a local hospital, he reported to Social Media that he’s going to be okay. With Blose on his way to the hospital the main event restarted and once again Justin Cooper got off to an incredible start while McAdoo was back in sixth. To make matters even worse, McAdoo then got caught up with his teammate Hammaker in one of the whoop sections and went down. And then, as if that wasn’t enough, during the second half of the main event McAdoo’s former Pro Circuit teammate Garrett Marchbanks decided to completely torpedo McAdoo in a right-hand corner, causing both riders to go down. Even after all of that McAdoo was still able to soldier on for a hard-earned 13th place. However, with 250SX West rivals Cooper and Hunter Lawrence upfront, McAdoo left the Peach State third in the points standings, 22 points behind leader Justin Cooper.

Now, there are multiple ways to look at McAdoo’s week in Atlanta. First, I think everyone will agree that this kid is as tough as a two-dollar steak. Never before in our sport or any sport for that matter, have we witnessed one rider take as many hard hits as McAdoo did and continue on performing at a high level. At times it looked like a Rocky movie where he just kept getting hit over and over again but refuses to stay down and give. That is the impressive part of what we all witnessed last week with regards to Cameron McAdoo. The bad part is that after his hard crash last Tuesday night, I don’t think in any other professional sport would you see McAdoo be allowed to line up for the restart. With modern-day concussion protocols being what they are in other professional sports like say the NHL, I think that McAdoo needed more evaluation before being allowed to restart. I mean, how many times in the past few seasons have you seen a player in the NHL get hit and look fine, only to return to the bench and have the official ‘concussion spotter’ (whose job is to watch the game and look for a player who take a hit to their head) call down and demand the player leave the game to have a concussion test. I’m not saying that McAdoo wasn’t safe to race after that crash, or that it didn’t make for great theatre, but there is no way in the NHL or NFL that he would’ve lined up for that restart. As I mentioned, I think McAdoo made himself into an instant hero with his ability to get knocked down and still be able to remount and keep racing. However, at some point on Saturday, it appeared like he just wasn’t himself. I’m sure his team and his riding coach Nick Wey told him multiple times to relax and to try and limit the damage, but those wise words didn’t seem to work. I feel bad for McAdoo as because of his own mistakes the 250SX West Championship is all but gone. He made a crucial error on Tuesday and then again in practice on Saturday that caused him to hit the ground hard. Most top riders don’t crash that hard over the span of an entire season, let alone twice in one week. It was just crazy to see! With regards to the Marchbanks incident. That was a cheap shot that was completely unnecessary by Marchbanks. At that point in the main event, every rider on the track and in the paddock knew that McAdoo was a wounded duck, and in my opinion, you just don’t kick someone when they’re already down. Now, I’m not putting myself inside the helmet of Marchbanks, but it appeared to me that he saw an opportunity to ensure that in no way was the Pro Circuit Team (the team that dumped him last year) going to win the 250SX West title. This was payback in its most ruthless form and I’m surprised (or not surprised really) that the AMA didn’t punish Marchbanks for that move. Anyway, racing is racing and we always want things to get sorted out on the race track, but that was a bit much.

In the 450SX class, I’m sure Toronto Maple Leaf supporters can attest to this, but it’s become difficult to keep cheering for Ken Roczen in these main events. On Tuesday, he dominated and looked like he was once again ready to battle for this championship. Cooper Webb was nowhere near him in the main event and I’m sure most expected much of the same on Saturday. After all, how much progress could KTM and Webb make in just four short days? However, as the television crew pointed out during the broadcast, Webb and his team made the six-hour trek back to the Baker’s Factory to test on Thursday. Obviously, they found something to improve upon as Webb ended up winning the 450SX main event on Saturday evening. In that main event, Roczen appeared to have his second win in a row all but wrapped up as he looked unstoppable on the challenging Atlanta track. However, Roczen would make a big mistake in the whoop section and go down. Thankfully, he was able to remount quickly and was still in the lead. But whether he was winded, had a bent-up motorcycle, or a bit of both, his lead didn’t last for long and when Webb reeled him in, Roczen appeared to pull over and let Webb have the lead and the win. Now, I cannot imagine Roczen just pulling over and giving up, not with all he’s been through, but it sure appeared that way on television. Now, with just two rounds remaining Webb has a 16 point lead and unless something drastic happens, he will most likely be your 2021 450SX Monster Energy Supercross Champion. Again, if you’re a fan of Roczen, which I think we all are at this point, it’s just so frustrating. Why go so wide in the entrance into that corner and let Webb ride by?

Well, that is it for me this week. I hope everyone has a safe and healthy week. Let’s hope things improve quickly and we’ll be able to go racing sooner than later. Thank you for reading and if you have any questions or comments please email me at chris@mxpmag.com.