Monday Gate Drop

It’s hard to believe that we’re already into June, it feels like just yesterday we were getting ready for the Toronto Supercross. It’s also hard to believe how inconsistent the weather has been in Southern Ontario, it seems like for the last two months we’ve gone through this cycle of three decent days followed by five days of rain. It has been a little miserable for sure, but I guess on the bright side this wet weather has stayed away on most of the weekends and with the added moisture the tracks are still in great shape.

So before I talk about the Walton Double Header, lets briefly go over what happen at the biggest race in the country, round two of the 2013 Monster Energy Motocross Nationals in Kamloops, BC. I find it sad that instead of focusing on Brett Metcalfe’s first win on Canadian soil, and the impending series battle between him and Colton Facciotti, we now must talk about another injury to one of our top riders. In case you didn’t hear, yesterday in the first MX1 moto while trying to chase down Metcalfe, Facciotti crashed hard. According to Colton’s Team Manager Andy White, Colton had a pretty simple crash that was easy for him to recover from. While he was trying to remount from this crash he got hit by a few riders and in the pile up, poor Colton ended up with a badly broken leg. As of right now, Colton is resting and is doing well after having surgery last night to insert rods and plates into his lower leg. It is not only a huge blow to Colton and his team, but also to the 2013 Series as I mentioned earlier that this could’ve been the summer of the Facciotti/Metcalfe battle.

But motocross racing is a tough business and we have to move on, Colton is one of the toughest kids to ever ride a dirt bike so you know he will be back as soon as he can be. While it appears now that Metcalfe is the rider to beat in the MX1 class, there are a number of hungry riders like Tyler Medaglia, Bobby Kiniry and Teddy Maier (just to name a few) who all want to win motos and make this their summer. Let’s hope for everyone’s sake that they can do it starting this weekend at round three in Calgary. But, for now, let’s just pray for Colton and his family and a speedy recovery.

In this blog I have spoken a lot about families and what a great family sport motocross is, but this past month I got to witness this in full effect. Now, obviously I am talking about my son Ayrton, but really this could be any young kid on the eve of their first race at the hallowed grounds of Walton Raceway. It was around the beginning of May that the countdown to Walton began in the Pomeroy house, no, not the countdown to the Parts Canada TransCan, just the countdown to the Double Header this past weekend. To my son, the Walton Double Header marked the first time that he was going to get to race at Walton Raceway, a place that he has been coming to watch racing since he was 10 months old.

So last month the questions started, how many more sleeps (when we told him it was 35 sleeps he stopped asking for a bit), what was the track going to be like, how steep are the drop-offs and how deep would the ruts be? These questions got asked and answered about 50 times leading up to this past weekend. I have heard many times over the years Walton Raceway used as a form of a motocross measuring stick. Things like the natural double have become a topic of conversation among kids and adult riders, it’s like once you’ve jumped the natural double you’re part of an exclusive club. Even if you’ve only jumped it once, you can stand up proud and say “ya, I’ve jumped the natural, it’s no big deal”.

Thankfully for my son, he is a few years away from having to worry about jumping big jumps, his biggest concern is making it through some of the big bike ruts on the track, and of course why he couldn’t visit the ice cream truck in between races. So when all the sleeps were over and the day finally arrived I hoped that when he finally got to ride the Walton track, he wouldn’t be disappointed.

I do believe that life is made up of little moments, and we must cherish these moments as there is no guarantee that they will happen again. So when Ayrton came off after practice on Saturday it was my turn to ask him a question about Walton, when I leaned into his helmet and ask him how the track was he reply was a very loud and excited ” Daddy, that was so much fun!!” As a parent, how could you ask for a better response than that? Whether you do well at this sport or just go and have fun, it really doesn’t matter because at the end of the day this is what the sport of motocross is all about. Now I’m sure there will be an entirely new set of questions about the TransCan in August.

In closing I would like to share with you a funny story from the Walton Double Headed that could’ve turned out real bad but ended up being okay. It involved one of Ontario’s fastest young riders Luke Tricco and a precocious snapping turtle who apparently wanted to watch some of the racing on Saturday. Well, this turtle wandered onto the track during one of Luke’s motos and poor Luke hit it square on and crashed. Thankfully both turtle and Luke were both sore but okay and they carried on with their day. Since the turtle wasn’t even wearing a wrist band, no one seems to know how it even got into the Walton grounds. The theory I have is that track builder Barry Hetherington will stop at nothing in his attempt to give riders new obstacles on the Walton track. We’ll see in August at the TransCan? I hope everyone has a good week, I am off to Calgary on Thursday for round three on the Monster Energy MX Nationals, so we will have lots to report from there. In the meantime, there will be interviews, videos and photo reports from Kamloops all of this week on this web site. Enjoy!