Good day and welcome to another edition of the Honda Canada Racing Monday Gate Drop. Today in Ontario it’s Family Day so it’s a holiday for some. From everyone at MXP Magazine and Honda Canada, Happy Family Day!
This past weekend the Toronto Motorcycle Show invaded the Enercare Centre for its annual event. This has always been a fun show as in recent years a lot of industry have attended. This year was no different as on Friday and Saturday there was a ton of MX people to chat with. There was also an important meeting on Friday afternoon between Jetwerx and the OEMs and Team Managers. For the most part this meeting was a status update on how everything is coming along for the 2019 Rockstar Energy Triple Crown Series. After the meeting I heard from both sides as I first had dinner with Kyle Thompson a few hours later, then I spoke to a few OEMs and Team Managers on Saturday. Both sides appeared positive on everything that was discussed during the meeting, and I feel like at this point everyone just wants to focus ahead and get ready to go racing in just over six weeks time. Yes, you read that correctly, in just over six weeks the gate will drop on another year of pro racing in Canada.
Another cool part of these shows is listening to feedback about some of the stories that we featured in MXP Magazine during the past year. I know it’s a small group but it does give me an idea of what different people enjoy reading, whether it’s a test riding story, a lifestyle story or a profile type story. If I had to pick, I’d say that either my Japan Suzuki story or one of Mike McGill’s history stories from 2018 stand out as the most talked about this past weekend. Anyway, it definitely got me excited for our riding season and for what stories we can compose in 2019. I love the timing of this particular show as it always feels like we’re on the cusp of spring. Yes, even though we’re still in the grips of winter and the fact that I almost fell on the icy sidewalks surrounding the Enercare Centre about ten times, the days are starting to get longer and the sun is beginning to feel warmer.
There were also some celebrity guests at the Toronto Motorcycle Show as GDR Fox Honda Team Manager brought three of his star riders to help work the Honda Canada booth. Colton Facciotti, Dylan Wright, and the team’s newest rider, Mike Alessi, were all in attendance to bench race and interact with the public. If you are a Canadian motocross fan then the Honda Canada booth was the place to be as there was definitely some good story telling going on. With these three riders, as well as young Jake Tricco, the GDR pits are definitely going to be a busy place this summer as they will have two riders in each class. I spent considerable time talking to each rider on Saturday, and even though they all seem to be in different mental states at the moment, all three expressed excitement for what’s to come.
Mike Alessi told me that he’s very much looking forward to his new red surroundings this summer and that he was not happy with how last season went. He said that he felt like he wasn’t as prepared as he wanted to be coming into the MXTour last year and that he won’t make the same mistake again. I also must say that as Mike gets older, he appears to be getting more comfortable and is having more fun than ever with the fans. At the show he was hanging with the kids and talking to pretty much anyone who wanted to talk. It was cool to see him in that environment. I think Derek Schuster made a good call in bringing him on board for 2019.
As usual, Dylan Wright was just talking about how excited he is to go racing and how he will try to win his first pro championship. For the past few weeks he’s been down at Alessi’s place in Hillard, Florida riding and training. As most of you saw on Social Media two weeks ago, Dylan was hit by a car while he and Mike were out road biking. Dylan said that a distracted teenage girl blew through a stop sign, hit him, sent him flying and then just kept on driving. Obviously, it could’ve been much worse as thoughts of what happened to Nicky Hayden come to everyone’s mind. Considering how badly Dylan looked in the photos right after the incident happened, he actually looked pretty good at the show on Saturday. In between bicycle crash stories, Dylan also spoke to me about how excited he is for the race season to begin in April. He talked about how much he learned last year and how good physically he feels right now.
As for our 5-time Canadian National Champion, Colton Facciotti, we also had a long chat about how last year ended and how he’s currently feeling. This week he will be heading back down to GPF in Georgia to begin preparing for what I believe is his 17th or 18th year of pro racing. This marathon-type streak is amazing to think about as Colton has been such an important part of Canadian motocross for so long. Like Chad Reed in the USA, I think there’s going to be a big void in our sport when Colton finally decides to hang it up. For now, though, Colton appears to be mostly healed up from his potential career ending injuries he suffered at November’s Quebec City SX. It’s sometimes hard to read through Colton’s ultra-calm demeanour, but I believe he’s very anxious to get down south to begin his customary preparation. He told me that he feels good right now but he will only know for sure once he starts pounding out laps on the rough GPF track. I can certainly attest to how difficult back injuries can be as they can happen quickly then last for years. Colton looks good and has been training very hard since the new year began. Listening to Colton and to all of the GDR Fox Honda riders talk about racing definitely made me very excited for our season to begin. With a great mix of young riders and a strong veteran presence, the GDR Fox Honda Team will most certainly be a team to watch in 2019.
As I mentioned at the beginning of this column, this is Family Day in Ontario and I want to spend time with my crew this afternoon. For that reason, I’m going to call it a day and not go into too much detail about what happened on Saturday evening in Dallas. As I’m sure everyone saw, the 450SX main event had the closest finish ever witnessed in the sport of supercross. Cooper Webb came back from a mediocre start to challenge Ken Roczen for the lead on the final lap. Then in the final corner Webb ran it on Roczen, forcing the Honda rider to slightly delay his exit from the turn. It wasn’t dirty by any means, but it was definitely aggressive as you could tell Webb wanted another win. However, so did Roczen, and the two riders raced for the finish line. When it was all said and done, Webb beat Roczen across the line by a knobby to take his fourth win of 2019, and the 450SX points lead. It was a great race. Here are the highlights of both the 450SX class and the 250SX class:
This coming weekend, the 2019 Monster Energy Supercross Series heads to Detroit for Round 8. Ford Field in Detroit will also be the host of the second Triple Crown event of the year so that should be very exciting. Thank-you for reading this week’s Honda Canada Racing Gate Drop and I hope everyone has a happy Family Day and a great final week of February.