The Monday Gate Drop Presented By Yamaha Motor Canada

Well, how was your first week of 2024? I’m not sure what the weather has been like in your area, but where I live in Ontario we’ve barely had winter yet. There has been a couple of snow falls over the past month. However, the snow has melted, and up until last week there was zero, and everything was brown. But, the no-snow party appears to be coming to an end as the forecast for the next few weeks is calling for our real Canadian winter to finally arrive.

One place where they’re not worried about snow is in Anaheim, California, and that is where I will begin my column. Don’t you just love what the opening round of the Monster Energy Supercross in Anaheim has become? It is by far the biggest and most important race of the year, and it is watched by fans right across the globe. I remember racing the opening round of SX thirty years ago in Orlando, and there wasn’t the fraction of excitement that surrounds A1 these days. The sport of SX has become massive in recent years, and I (like everyone), couldn’t wait to tune in on Saturday night. Also, as someone who resides in the Eastern Standard Time Zone, I love the new schedule. It felt good not to have to stay up until 1am to watch the main events. Bravo to whom ever came up with that idea during the off-season. Anyway, it was a great night of racing inside Angel Stadium, and I thought the track turned out to be decent for racing. There was talk on media day about the track being a little more technical than usual for the opening round, but as the riders figured it out during Saturday’s qualifying sessions, the layout and the obstacles ended up being fairly routine. With the exception of the short hip/tabletop jump which claimed several victims throughout the evening, including Star Racing Yamaha rider Jordan Smith and Cooper Webb. Finally, looking ahead to next weekend, with rain in the forecast for Saturday, it will be interesting to see what the track crew does with the San Francisco track.

For the first time in several years, we had three Canadian’s racing the 250SX West class at A1. Cole Thompson was lining up again after a solid off-season racing the WSX Series, as well as the Australian SX Series. Julien Benek, was also racing and he’s coming into 2024, riding the high of some very good results in the final Triple Crown Series events. Finally, Guillaume St-Cyr, who has spent the last few years racing on the East Coast, decided that he needed a change of scenery, so he was also on the starting line this weekend. Cole came into A1 with high expectations as he had a great month testing his new 2024 Heartbeat Hot Sauce Solitaire Team YZ250F. He started off his evening in very positive way by finishing 5^th in the 250SX West class heat race. Unfortunately, a miscue off of the gate gave Cole a last place start, and although he made some great moves in the early laps that took him up to 11^th, a little arm pump set in and he dropped back to 12^th. Cole obviously wasn’t happy with his finish on Saturday evening, so hopefully Round 2 will be better for him. The top ten in the 250SX West class are very fast, so Cole is going to need some good starts, and obviously no arm pump, if he wants to contend for the finishes we all know he’s capable of.

Julien Benek is another story altogether as he came into A1 having recently being diagnosed with mono. For all of us who have had this virus at some point in our lives, we all know how difficult it is to make it through a day, let alone race the Anaheim SX. Poor Julien also broke his thumb during practice on Saturday, so to say that he limped into the night program would be a gross understatement. In the end, he rode fast and smart and made it in to the main event with a second place finish in the LCQ. After that, Julien would go on to finish 19^th in the main event, and would go home feeling very good about himself. It was definitely a gutty performance by the young BC rider, and hopefully he can get feeling better this week and if the conditions are a little wet in San Francisco, I like his chances of finishing even better at Round 2. Finally, St-Cyr had a solid day in Anaheim, and although he didn’t qualify for the main event, he rode well and didn’t miss by much.

In the 450SX class, it came as no surprise that Jett Lawrence was able to pull the holeshot in the main event and ride off with his first-ever Anaheim SX premier class victory. This kid is a phenom and one of the best things to happen to our sport in quite some time. I can understand people getting annoyed at all of the hype he’s getting however, if you don’t like him and you cheer for him to fail, then you have issues. On Saturday evening, Jett controlled the main event, dealing with lapped traffic, and deteriorating track conditions with perfection. His only sketchy moment came on the final lap when he got cross rutted in the third base line rhythm section and almost jumped off the track. Other than that, Jett was great on Saturday night, and he proved (not that he needed to), that he’s the 450SX class title favourite. Jason Anderson kept Jett close for 18 minutes as he had to deal with a pesky Cooper Webb on his back fender for most of the main event. Unfortunately, Webb crashed hard with a few laps to go and dropped back to sixth. Webb’s speed was impressive on Saturday night as he won his heat race and then battled for a podium early in the main event. The announcers were calling Webb the “Best Closer” in our sport, as in recent years he’s made several late race charges to the lead. Webb is good at adapting to the ever changing track conditions without a doubt but, I feel he’s way much better at coming from behind when he was training at the Baker’s Factory. Another rider who kind of lucked into the final podium spot was the defending SX champ Chase Sexton. During most of the 450SX main event Sexton sat in 4^th and didn’t really look comfortable enough to make a charge forward. I believe he was playing it smart, and trying to get through the opening round without a major mistake. You can’t blame him for that. With Webb crashing, that moved Sexton up to third, and unless there is something we don’t know about, I would assume he was happy with that.

Eli Tomac, rode very conservative all day long and could only muster a 9^th place finish in the main event. When the camera’s showed Tomac riding late in the race, he looked tired and frustrated. I don’t think I’ve ever seen Tomac ride around just inside the top ten looking tired and without an ounce of flow. Was he hurting? Was he feeling the effects of not racing in eight months? Did he ride by himself too much during the past few months? We don’t know what was going on with Tomac, but I’m sure he’ll be better this weekend, and then even better the following weekend. At his age, and with the type of injury he suffered last season, I believe Tomac is going to need at least a month to get back up to the speed he was running a year ago. One rider who gets my nod for the ride of the night in the 450SX class was Tomac’s other teammate Justin Cooper. J-Coop was 16^th on the opening lap and then he slowly picked away riders until he was inside the top ten. With a few laps to go he was still charging and passed Tomac for 8^th. If he can get through the SX Series healthy I believe he’s going to be a real force in the MX Series this summer.

It was a great night of racing in Anaheim, and now the 2024 SuperMotocross Series moves north to San Francisco. As I mentioned above, the weather forecast doesn’t look kind for the Bay Area this week and into the weekend. But, with any luck Mother Nature will once again show us that she’s a fan of SX and the sun will be out. I’m going with Jett again in the 450SX class, and Levi Kitchen in the 250SX West class.

In other news, Tyler Gibbs now sits inside the top five in the GT Arenacross Series after his 4^th overall this past weekend. Tyler has been slowly improving and it’s great to see him finishing so well. That series moves to Dallas, TX this coming weekend. Zach Ufimzeff is currently over in Germany getting ready to race in the German SX Series this weekend. It’s great to see Zach overseas representing Canada in the long running German SX Series. Good luck to Zach, and to all of our Canadian riders this weekend!

Well, that is it for me this week. I hope everyone is having a great start to the new year, and after an up and down 2023, I know I’m pumped for this year! Thank you for reading and if you have any questions or comments, please email me at editor@mxpmag.com.