Honda Canada Racing Presents the Monday Gate Drop

Good day and welcome to the second Honda Canada Racing Monday Gate Drop of the month of May. We are now four months into 2018 and the race season is in full swing. In less than two weeks the GDR Fox Honda Team of Colton Facciotti and Dylan Wright will be lining up at the opening round of the Rockstar Energy Triple Crown MXTour in Calgary, AB. Both riders will be looking to get off to a quick start in the 450 and 250 Pro/Am classes.

I hope everyone out there had a great weekend, and I hope the weather was great in your area. As we all know, yesterday was Mother’s Day, which has to be one of the best days of the year. It’s amazing that in our society we celebrate both Mother’s Day and Father’s Day, because honestly, where would most of us be without our parents? Growing up, my parents were a little old school in the fact that my Dad went off to work, while my Mom stayed home with me and my two siblings. As every stay at home parent knows, being that person is probably one of the toughest jobs on the planet, and it sometimes goes unnoticed. While I was growing up and racing dirt bikes every summer, my Mom was a person who did everything behind the scenes. She would do all of the cooking, she packed the cooler for the track, she made sure my gear was clean, and then she would sit at the fence, chew on her finger nails and watch me race. Some things never change, and if you want to feel bad for a mom at a race track, keep an eye on one during the start of her child’s race. The worried look on her face, her body language as she helplessly paces back and forth, those few moments until she knows that her kid made it safely through the first turn might as well be an hour. However, as heart wrenching as it is, they do it time and time again, all season long. Then some, like my Mom, turn into grandparents and now they have to watch their grandson or granddaughter race. Sometimes, I don’t know whether to tell my Mom how awesome she is, or just say sorry! Anyway, if you haven’t already, please give your mom a big hug and tell her thanks for everything. Whether they ran your household, or mostly remained behind the scenes, I guarantee they were mostly responsible for the success of it. With this said, I hope all you moms out there had a great day yesterday.

Prior to this past weekend news broke that Dean Wilson had an incident while practicing on Thursday and ended up tearing his ACL, for the third time in three years. This is just awful news as Dean was having a great season aboard his Husqvarna, and was no doubt looking forward to the outdoor season. In just a moment, he went from being an outdoor title contender to having to face a third knee reconstruction. I cannot even imagine how gutted he’s feeling right now as he once again faces a long recovery. Considering Dean was riding on an open practice day at a local California track when this happened, it begs the question of why was he doing motos at the same time as much slower riders? I can’t think of another professional sport where its top athletes practice on the same track, at the same time as amateur athletes. I know it happens on tracks all over as they sometimes have a hard time just closing just to let a few pro riders spin some laps. However, in most cases, practice tracks will split up the slower riders and the faster riders into separate sessions. I’m not sure what exactly happened with Dean’s incident, but it sure sounds like it was just an open practice day at Glen Helen with all levels of riders on the track at the same time.

Dean now joins the long list of top riders who couldn’t stay healthy this season. It’s just crazy to think about all of the injuries in 2018. This sport has always been dangerous and has always produced injuries, at all levels. But, these days, riders appear to be getting injured more and more. Dean’s incident, whether avoidable or not, just reinforces the fact that every single rider needs to be extra vigilant every time they throw their leg over a dirt bike. Anything can happen on any given day as there are so many uncontrollable situations we face while riding.

Speaking of scary and uncontrollable situations that almost caused me to have a heart attack, while watching my son ride on Sunday morning at our practice track, everything was going just fine. The sun was shining, the track was perfect, we were letting mom sleep in for Mother’s Day, and it seemed like nothing could go wrong. However, as my son came roosting by me, heading down the longest and fastest straight on our track, out of nowhere a massive jack rabbit went running across the track and thankfully just missed my son. Now, it doesn’t take an accident investigator to realize what would’ve happened if my son and this animal had collided. My heart definitely skipped a few beats. When he slowed down and made his way over to me and asked if I saw that, I did my absolute best to try to downplay it while I told him that we were for sure going to play the lottery this week. You see, this was a perfect example of just how anything can happen in our sport and we have to be ready. Anyway, we want to send our best wishes out to Dean Wilson, and we hope that he can come back from this stronger than ever. The sport needs riders like Dean in one piece and racing all season long.

We are now under two weeks away from the opening gate drop of the 2018 Rockstar Energy Triple Crown MXTour in Calgary and I couldn’t be more excited. Kicking off this new series at one of the best tracks in Canada is going to be extra special. There is nothing like the sound of 40 riders blasting off the starting line at an outdoor national, and it’s all happening in just 12 days! Finally, this weekend I will be heading to Moto Park for Rounds 1 and 2 of the 2018 New Era MPCup. These events have become such a great time, and it all gets started on Friday with open practice (I’m sure Moto Park will be splitting riders into groups as they always do for practice). I hope everyone has a great week and please be safe while riding. Make sure you watch out for any wildlife running across the track!