Palms Announces His Year End Golden Elbow Awards

For the past number of years, I’ve been writing a feature that I like to call the “Golden Elbow Awards” where I come up with my picks in a few different categories. From individual awards like “Rider of the Year”, to other awards such as “Track of the Year”, “Team of the Year”, “National of the Year”, “Event of the Year” as well as “Moto of the Year”. It’s always a lot of fun, and since I consult a few people to assist me with my picks, I always enjoy the process. So without any further delay here are a few of my Golden Elbow Awards for 2022.

Track of the Year: Walton Raceway at The Walton TransCan

In years past, this has been a difficult award to choose as we have so many great tracks in Canada. However, for 2022 there is one track that stood out a little more than the rest that I attended this summer, and that is Walton Raceway and how it was prepared for the Walton TransCan. In the weeks leading up to the 30th Anniversary, Walton TransCan crew decided to truck in multiple loads of sand to mix in with the traditional hard-packed clay that the track is made up of. As any track owner will tell you, trying to change the consistency of the land’s natural soil can be a risky task and many tracks don’t even bother. But, the Walton crew wanted to do something special for this historic TransCan and when everyone showed up in August, the track was covered in a thick layer of sand. Now, it wasn’t all roses for the track crew and the riders, as some early week rain left the sand heavy and wet and the clay underneath saturated. So for the opening practice sessions, the track was a mess and a few of the younger classes struggled to even make it around. But with the sun shining, the track dried quickly and by the time the opening moto of the week was on the starting line, conditions were prime. Even as the last few motos of the day hit the track the conditions remained solid and this is why I’m handing out this award to Walton Raceway. The sand that the crew had put on the track is what made the difference in those dreaded late motos each day at the 2022 TransCan. Even as the sun beat down on the track all week long the conditions remained raceable and we didn’t see the dust that we sometimes do during the final races.

Event of the Year: Triple Crown Series SX/AX Tour

For this award, I had to go with multiple events and I chose the Triple Crown Series SX/AX Tour races at Gopher Dunes, Sarnia, and Calgary. I love indoor racing and I’m a big proponent of this series for racers of all ages and skill levels. In my opinion, if a young rider is searching for a reason to try their hand at indoor racing look no further than the pro class and where some of our top riders have gotten opportunities to travel and race in faraway lands. With the exception of Dylan Wright and his five MXGP events last fall, indoor racing has been very kind to a few of our riders. So please learn to ride SX/AX at a young age and then keep it going as you get older and gain more experience. Each of the Triple Crown Series indoor events had its own cool factor to it.  Whether it was Gopher Dunes and its outdoor SX vibe under the lights, or Sarnia and its packed stands, then Calgary was just awesome with its venue and large amateur turnout. I know it’s costly for the teams to do extra racing in the fall, so hats off to the ones who dug deep into their pockets and made it happen. As I said, I love these races and that is why I’ve chosen them for the Event(s) of the Year.

National of the Year: Riverglade National

This was another tough category as all of the Triple Crown Series rounds were just awesome in 2022. We saw a return to races in the west and although I didn’t attend any of the three west rounds, I heard good things about them all. The two rounds at Walton Raceway were entertaining, Gopher Dunes was its usual nightmare for the riders, and as always, Sand Del Lee and Deschambault provided some incredible battles. However, for 2022 my pick for National of the Year goes to Riverglade Raceway. I chose Riverglade for a couple of reasons including track conditions, as well as the fact that the series hasn’t travelled to the east for two years. Everyone in the series loves heading east to Moncton, and in turn everyone in Moncton and the surrounding area loves when the series comes to town. The people always come out in droves to watch the racing at this round, and with the large grandstands and spectator access to the infield, the Riverglade round is very fan friendly. Also, this year the track crew ripped the Riverglade deep before practice, so by the time the gate dropped for the opening moto the ruts were deep and the track was challenging. Watching our top pro riders and WMX riders navigate the deep ruts was pretty cool, and it reminded me of watching a national from the USA when they used to rip the track deep. I heard from a few riders that the Riverglade National was the most challenging of the series without a doubt. 

Moto of the Year: We have a tie

When I look back to the summer of 2022 and think about all of the great motos that I witnessed, there were way too many to pick just one. So to be fair, I decided to narrow it down to three motos from this summer. The first winner of this award is pretty much all of the Eastern WMX motos beginning at Walton One and continuing to the final round of the series at Walton Raceway. Every moto we got to watch exciting battles between Eve Brodeur and Jamie Astudillo and sometimes they remained only bike lengths apart for an entire moto. In the end, Brodeur took the title, but it wasn’t without some incredible resistance from Astudillo.

The second winner of the Moto of the Year award goes to the third and final 250 moto at Round 4 at Walton Raceway. With the shortened motos that day, all of the riders were letting it hang out for the entire moto and that definitely added to the excitement. In the final 250 moto that day Mitchell Harrison, Ryder McNabb, and Jacob Piccolo went at it from start to finish and their battle had all of the fans on their feet cheering at the fences. It was an amazing race and when the checkered flag flew it was Harrison who used his experience to sneak out a big moto win.

Finally, the third recipient of this award goes to Dylan Wright’s come-from-behind moto at Sand Del Lee in July. Dylan entered that moto with a perfect moto score and even though he completely messed up his early laps, there was nothing that was going to get in his way of remaining undefeated. In most of the motos this summer we saw Dylan ride smooth, precise, and very calculated. However, in this moto, he dropped the hammer and everyone there that day saw Dylan’s true speed. It was pretty amazing to watch, at times he looked like a red freight train that refused to stop. In the end, Dylan took the lead at about the 25-minute mark and never looked back.

Team of the Year: Honda Canada GDR Fox Racing Team

This choice was an easy one as this powerhouse team took home both the 250 and 450 Triple Crown MXTour Series Championships. For Dylan Wright, winning the 450 title was no surprise, as he came into the summer as the clear favourite. For Ryder McNabb, this was his first pro title. Although the series didn’t quite start off the way he wanted in the western rounds, he fought back in the east and proved that he was the best 250 rider of the summer. Of course, it takes a village to win championships, and both these talented riders couldn’t have done without a great team behind them. The one thing that I think we can all agree on, is that the GDR Honda Team knows how to win titles. Derek Schuster runs a tight program that never leaves anything to chance. Their moto wins and titles most certainly don’t come by accident and with Dylan Wright and Jacob Piccolo under their tent for 2023, they are once again the team to beat heading into next season.

Rider of the Year- Dylan Wright

This was another award that was fairly easy to pick.  For the first time ever, a rider went undefeated in our pro national series. Throughout the summer Dylan Wright was clearly the fastest rider in the 450 class, and while his wins came relatively easy in the opening five rounds, adversity did rear its ugly head at the mid-point of the 450 series. As I mentioned above, he had to come from behind in the final moto at SDL, and then a week later he had to fight through the pain of some broken ribs that he suffered in a mid-week practice crash. As Dylan told us in a post-race interview that he almost didn’t race in Riverglade as the pain was horrific and he was struggling to breathe. However, like every champion, he battled through it and remained perfect right to the end of the series. Dylan Wright is a beast and I don’t think we’ve seen a rider this determined since Ross Pederson back in the 1980s. I’ve mentioned before that in my opinion Dylan Wright is the best all-around rider that Canada has ever produced, but I haven’t had a chance to explain why I think this. So look for a story soon where I lay out my reasons for thinking this. Anyway, congratulations to Dylan Wright and to all of the winners this year. It was a great 2022 season and I cannot wait to see what happens next year!