The Monday Gate Drop Presented By Yamaha Motor Canada

Greetings! Welcome to the first Monday Gate Drop of October 2024. After a month of warm and dry weather here in Southern Ontario, the cool and dampness of fall has finally set in. The nights have begun to get cold and that has finally made the trees take on their usual beautiful colours. With Thanksgiving weekend coming up in a few days, this is certainly a great time of the year to both ride, and spend time with family.

I had an exciting week. On Tuesday, I travelled to the Pacific Northwest for the 2025 KX250 media launch. We stayed at the beautiful Skamania Lodge, which is located about 35 minutes from Washougal MX Park. While there, I was able to spend two days riding the 2025 KX250 as well as the 2025 KX250X. Along with the North American media, Kawasaki also had their factory team test rider Broc Tickle, as well as the newly retired Adam Cianciarulo. Both riders were fun to ride with, and talk about the new bike with. Tickle wasn’t involved in the development of this new KX250, but he did ride the pre-production version last year, and he mentioned that even since then the motor package has been improved. Day one at Washougal was all about riding the KX250 on the MX track, while Day two was mostly spent on the KX250X model riding the numerous trails around the property. I guess Washougal had hosted a Hare Scramble event the week before so the trails were extremely rough and challenging. It was obviously a great few days in Washington State, and I had a lot of fun riding the famous Washougal track. I had never been there before so it was a true honour to ride a track that has produced so many epic racing moments over the years. Riding impressions on these two new KX250 models are embargoed until today, so look for the full review story tomorrow right here on mxpmag.com.

Moving over to the UK and the 2024 Motocross of Nations, and I’ll first start with our young Blu Cru riders who were over there for the Yamaha Superfinale event. This was such a unique and exciting opportunity for Chandler Powell, Talon Medaglia, and Jonathon Bergeron to not only travel to the MXON, but also race against their fellow Blu Cru riders from around the world. All three riders rode well and finished well inside the Top 20, with Talon Medaglia getting the best result, with a 4^th in the 85cc class. I have spoken at length with the folks from Yamaha Motor Canada and this is something they plan to do again next year, and well into the future. So, if you’re a young Yamaha rider here in Canada, you could get the opportunity to travel to Ironman Raceway and compete in the 2025 Blu Cru Superfinale race. Congratulations to Chandler, Talon, and Jonathon on their performances this past weekend. I’m sure they enjoyed themselves while having this once in a lifetime experience.

Now, onto Team Canada and how their weekend went. I think overall our team did a fantastic job, both on Saturday, as well as yesterday. Given the track conditions and high level of competition, 15^th overall wasn’t too bad, and it was a vast improvement over last year. Obviously, with a little better individual results, especially in the MX2 class, we could’ve inched closer to the Top 11 or Top 12, but overall, I feel like everyone should be satisfied with Team Canada’s results against the World’s best riders. I’ll dissect our Team’s overall performance in a moment, but from a fan’s perspective, how good was the racing up front yesterday? OMG! First off, it was awesome to see both Australia win gold yesterday, as well as Team USA, who entered the weekend as kind of an underdog, ride so well to finish second overall. I’m not sure Aaron Plessinger wasn’t completely happy with his riding in either moto, but I thought Cooper Webb’s second moto was outstanding, and what can you say about Eli Tomac that hasn’t been said already. To me, Eli’s riding on Sunday was unbelievably good. The Matterley Basin track look absolutely treacherous on both days of racing, but Eli rode like the Eli from a few years ago. Also, leading Team Australia was Jett Lawrence, who used his superior technique and cerebral racecraft to make racing the track look like a walk in the park. His 12^th to 2^nd (and almost win) in the final moto yesterday was even better than his charge last year in France. Never mind the fact that Gajser passed him for the win with two turns to go, Jett was the class of the field in my opinion. Another thing that was quite evident this past weekend was how loose some of the top Euro’s ride. I mean, they’re obviously fast and aggressive, especially on a track they know very well, but other than Jorge Prado (and a few of the top young MX2 riders) the top 450 riders are all over the map and looked extremely difficult to race against. Even Gajser’s pass on Jett with two corners to go was out there and a little over the top, given the situation. I mean, of course you want to win the final moto and make a statement, but Gajser already had his class overall win in the bag, and if it wasn’t for Jett and his situational awareness, both riders could’ve gone down hard, and it could’ve altered the overall results for Team Australia. Anyway, it did make for some exciting racing yesterday in all three motos, and Gajser’s pass on Jett was one of the most memorable moments in MXON history. At the end of the day, how cool was it for Team Australia to win gold yesterday? You think of all of the fast Australian riders from over the years, but at this event they just haven’t been able to put three riders on the track that could get the job done. Finally, after many years of trying, and coming close, the Lawrence Brothers, along with Kyle Webster were able to bring home gold to the land of green and gold.

As I mentioned above, I thought Team Canada put in a valiant effort this past weekend and they should all be proud. From Team Manager Kourtney Lloyd and her fund raising and organizational talents, to the team personnel who helped out, and of course to our three talented riders who gave it everything they had yesterday. In listening to our riders post race interviews, they all appeared satisfied with their 15^th overall, but the consensus seemed to be that they all struggled with the challenging track, and of course with vision, due to the constant drizzle. Both items were something that everyone had to deal with yesterday, so it came as no surprise to hear them say that. Dylan Wright’s 13^th place in the final moto yesterday was our best individual result, and if you look at who was just in front of him, as well as right behind him, that was a pretty good race for Dylan. In fact, at one point early in the final moto Dylan and Jess were battling each other inside the Top 15 until Jess made a small mistake and dropped back. Pettis would go on to finish 22^nd in the final moto, and 24-22 on the day in the MXGP class.

As for our most experienced rider on Team Canada, it was difficult to listen to Benoit’s post race interview, as you could just hear the emotion and frustration in his voice. What Benoit did this summer in Canada was truly remarkable, and most likely something we won’t see again. However, yesterday was a great example of how stubborn our minds can be as we get older, and how sometimes it just won’t allow us to push outside our comfort zone. On the right track and on the right day, Benoit could easily run inside the Top 10 in the MX2 class, but on the Matterley Basin track, and in those conditions, it just wasn’t the ‘right’ day for Benoit and he admittedly struggled. Like I said, you could hear the emotion in his voice, and I thought that was sad after such an incredible summer for the 36 year old. Moving forward it will be interesting to see what Benoit does as far as racing in 2025. As of right now he’s ineligible to race the 250 class with his big #1, and he told me last month that he isn’t sure if he wants to continue racing if he has to race in the 450 class. I’d love to see Benoit keep racing, and I’ve even quietly proposed amending the rule that will keep Benoit out of the 250 class in 2025. My feeling is that once you’re 30 years old it shouldn’t matter how many times you’ve won a certain title. At that point, your age and experience becomes a hindrance as opposed to being an asset. I’ve been told that the rule isn’t getting changed as it would open up a can of worms too big to close again. Hopefully, Benoit returns in 2025 as the sport right now in Canada is better off with him on the starting line, and hopefully he can leave the UK today with his head held high knowing that he and his teammates gave it everything they had this past weekend.

Well, that is is for me this week. I hope everyone has a great week and a very Happy Thanksgiving. Thank you for reading and if you have any questions or comments, please email me at editor@mxpmag.com.