Well, we made it to December and now the official countdown to Christmas can begin. Hopefully, you’ve had time to get your Christmas tree up and the house decorated. However, if you haven’t then not to worry, you still have a few more weeks until Santa arrives.
Out in Chilliwack this past weekend, Christmas came early for Quinn Amyotte as he wrapped up the AMO Racing AX Championship on his new WLTN Kawasaki. I will talk more about Quinn in a moment, but for now let’s give some credit to everyone involved in this revamped AX Series in BC. Everything, especially this past weekend, ran smooth and there was some solid racing inside the Chilliwack Heritage Park Arena. By the sounds of it, the track this past weekend was improved from the opening weekend, and from the GoPro videos I saw, it looked like a lot of fun. As we’ve witnessed over the years when it comes to indoor track construction, it can be a very fine line between building it too technical, or not technical enough, especially when the track has to cater to all ages and skills of riders. Well, they appeared to nail it this past weekend and the great racing reflected that. This past weekend also represented the final race of the 2023 season. It’s been a solid season of racing right across the country. For me and my family, looking back we had some big highs and certainly some big lows. However, I’m glad that we were able to travel out west in June to race the WCAN in Kamloops. That event didn’t go as planned, however, it was great to witness our talented western riders compete on their home turf. We also made some incredible family memories that we’ll remember for a long time. Finally, we also learned as a family how to deal with adversity that no one ever thinks is going to happen to them. Sadly, it happened to us and looking back I’m super proud of how we dealt with it. Also, it reinforced the fact that when bad things do happen, our motocross family was there to help in any way possible. This was the first year that I’ve made it to all three ‘Cans’, the WCAN, the ECAN, and the biggest race of the year, the Walton TransCan. I’d say as a whole, that is a pretty good way to spend a summer! Now, it’s onto 2024.
Okay, let’s talk about the newest Team Green rider Quinn Amyotte. This likeable kid from Ontario is an interesting story for sure, as he’s certainly taken the long and winding road to success. Since turning pro, Quinn’s racing career has been similar to how a house is built. Brick by brick, floor by floor he’s built his foundation and has done things the right way. Quinn hasn’t appeared to skip any of the required steps, and when issues have arisen, he’s addressed them and made improvements. For instance, not long ago Quinn couldn’t buy a good start, and was in most cases always having to come through the pack. Now, on the surface, I’m sure in a perfect world he wanted to get better starts and battle with the leaders. If he had of on a regular basis, then perhaps Quinn would’ve received more support sooner in his career. However, you have to walk before you can run, and sometimes a young rider needs those come-from-behind rides in order to build character, and confidence. As we’ve seen over the years, riders can get a boost of confidence from various sources. Some riders can have someone tell them they look great in practice and those words alone are enough to get the ball rolling for the day. Some riders can have a fast qualifying session and use that momentum to carry them into the opening moto. Then there’s someone like multi-time Champion Dylan Wright, who has such a deep belief in himself that he doesn’t care what people say, or what type of practice he has, when he lines up on the starting gate he feels like he’s going to win. For Quinn, my feeling is that he needed to go through everything he has up until this point in his life, in order to have the inner confidence and self-belief to ride the way he’s been riding in 2023. If you look back at the past two seasons, his slow rise to the top has been fun to watch. Last year, Quinn improved his starts, and was battling inside the top five in most motos. That allowed him to see the speed up front for the first time and work on finding that speed. This past summer, he was up front more, and everyone, including his competition, knew he was a Top 4-5 rider regardless of where he started. Because of this process, Quinn gained more and more confidence, and while he’s still one of the nicest riders in the paddock, you can see a little swagger in his walk now. Of course, you can’t rise to the top without support, and thankfully Quinn has received a ton of it from his family, his fans, and from the Manluk Yamaha Team. All of this has led Quinn to even more support in the form of factory ride from the WLTN Kawasaki Team in 2024. Also, as I mentioned above, he won his first-ever pro title on the weekend and is now your 2023 AMO Racing AX Championship. Congratulations to Quinn and the WLTN Kawasaki Race Team. Hopefully, this is a sign of things to come in 2024. Finally, the moral of the Quinn Amyotte Story is that while every rider progresses at a different pace, there are no shortcuts to the front of the pack, and what at the time might feel like adversity, when you look back years later all those challenges were just part of the learning process.
Down in the USA, Tyler Gibbs had a solid weekend at the GT Arenacross in Oklahoma. Tyler finished 7th overall on Friday evening, and 11th overall on Saturday evening. Other than a dismal 11th place in the opening main event on Saturday, Tyler was consistently inside the top seven all weekend long. This was a great bounce back weekend for Tyler after a disastrous opening round last month. Hopefully, he can take some confidence into this weekend when the series heads to Lebanon, MO.
Well, that is it for me this week. I hope everyone has a great opening weekend of December. With Anaheim 1 being just over a month away the riders in the USA are busy preparing for the opening round of Monster Energy Supercross. If you’re a fan of SX then this could be the most exciting time of the year. There will be a ton of video content released over the next month so please keep checking mxpmag.com as I will share as much as I can. Have a great weekend and Happy Birthday to our talented photographer James Lissimore today. HBD James!