Monday Morning Coffee

Grab yourself another cup for some yarn spinning in this week’s Monday Morning Coffee opinion column about Motocross and more….

By Billy Rainford

Sorry about not posting a MMC last week. I went to my first local race of the season at Auburn Hills MX the day before and had so much content I wanted to get up, I made the choice to forego the Coffee, but I’m back with some yarn to spin!

First off, let’s quickly cover the final round of the 2025 Monster Energy AMA Supercross Series at Rice-Eccles Stadium on the campus of the University of Utah in Salt Lake City.

A lot of people had a new favourite rider in #100 Cole Davies as the New Zealander looked fantastic in his rookie SX season. There was the incident with his “teammate” #1 Haiden Deegan last week where he handled it like a true professional…once the crying stopped. Not once did he point a finger at Deegan, and that must have taken a lot of restraint! Warranted or not (that’s another long argument/discussion) the fact that he was able to take the blame really solidified him as a non-winge-er (someone who doesn’t winge.)

Then we get to SLC and he slows down and moves across the lane in a rhythm section, collecting poor #19 Jordon Smith in the process. Man, it just shows you how knife’s edge SX is. You can’t make any split-second decisions, and you really have to hold your line.

Smith was forced out of competition in too much pain and Davies was off to the hospital with a broken arm and nose, heading into surgery. A horrible way to end the season for 2 of the top 250 competitors.

With only a couple weeks until the Pro Motocross season starts, we’ll be without one of the big draws in the 250 class. I think everyone was waiting to see what the 17-year-old could do in the Great Outdoors, but we’ll have to wait.

As far as the 250 East Regional championship is concerned, that was a crazy race! It came down to a 3-point battle between #1E Tom Vialle, #56 Seth Hammaker, and #1W (24) RJ Hampshire. It had all the makings of an instant classic but then things happened that made in an all-time classic!

We’ve all seen the race, or at least the highlights, so I don’t need to tell you what happened. All I can say is that I feel horrible for Seth. It looked like this one was his until RJ did his move that took them both down and out of the fight.

I wanted to hear a little more of an emotional reaction out of Tom in his interviews, but I think he was more focused on the fact that there really shouldn’t have been any question who the champ was after he scored zero points in the mud race.

It was a crazy race!

On the 450 class, can you name another rider who wouldn’t have messed with #2 Cooper Webb to try and take him out? #4 Chase Sexton won the race handily but Webb had to finish worse than 5th for that to make a difference.

As crazy as it sounds, Cooper can ride around in the top 5 and make it look simple. How wild is that, by the way. He and his machine are that much better than the rest of the field.

Anyway, I don’t think anyone would have blamed Chase for going for a front wheel or more as he went by Webb. Chase did mention that Cooper is just too smart of a racer to let anything like that happen, so he just went out and won the race.

In the end, Webb took the title by a slim 2 points of Sexton. Ouch.

Behind them, #32 Justin Cooper and #27 Malcolm Stewart were in a little battle for the final podium spot in the series after #94 Ken Roczen was forced out of competition. J-Coop got it done and was the most improved rider in the 450 class, for sure.

If you haven’t watched the highlights, here you go:

We now move to the outdoor season, and we get the return of a big group of 450 heavy hitters: Jett Lawrence, Hunter Lawrence, Jorge Prado, and Eli Tomac.

I got a message that a few people were going to meet north of the city Saturday afternoon for a road bicycle ride. After the ride there were going to be burgers and beer followed by the SLC SX on a massive TV. I was IN!

I had recently got my new Scott Addict RC 40 and was having fun getting it all set up for me. The XL frames seem to fit me perfectly, it was just a matter of getting the seat/bar combination fine-tuned.

When I got there, I was happy to see 6 Vet racers and a former Pro waiting to hit the road. Take a look at the following photo. If you’re from Southwestern Ontario and of a certain advanced age, you’ll definitely recognize some of these faces!

Left to right we’ve got: yours truly, Chad Valenti, Josh Snider, Steve Emery, Dean Martin, THE Jimmy Dickens, and Jamie Ruddock.

There were 3 Scott bikes on the line!

I hadn’t seen Josh in a few years now. Did you know he and Mel now have 3 daughters and the youngest is already 3?! It’s true.

Time for a little foreshadowing…

After getting reacquainted, I asked Josh if he’d been cycling. He said not for about 10 years. Hmm… He also added that he hadn’t eaten that day and had put in about 7 hours shovelling hay in his barn that he’s converting into a shop. Hmm…

Off we went.

There are always different levels of riding when you go on a group ride, but you go into them knowing you’re either going to have to speed up a little or slow down a little to keep the group together…no problem. That’s what we tried to do.

However, it became obvious that Josh was showing the effects of all of the things I mentioned above. We’d take turns leading into the headwind on the way back but then someone yelled out that we’d lost a couple riders, so we stopped and waited to regroup.

I went to the back and tried to pull Josh along, and it worked for a while until his pace began to slow to a crawl and finally to a stop. This wasn’t good. Have you ever “bonked”? I have and it’s not fun.

There was no colour in Josh’s face and he was out of water and didn’t have any food source with him. We were on a 50K ride. He hadn’t ridden in probably over 10 years. It was all a recipe for disaster.

He needed some nourishment so I gave him some of my mixed drink. I was a little worried because it can be a little “troublesome” if you’re in that state and haven’t drank it before, but he needed something so I handed it over.

He gulped it down and then about 30 seconds later everything started to come up with volcanic force. I joked with him that it wll ether help him or make him sick. Unfortunately, it did the latter. Most unfortunate was the fact that I did’t grab my phone to record the fountain! He gave me ample chances too!

He was in no shape to continue, so Dean stayed with him and the rest of us headed back to grab someone’s truck to come back and get them. We were still 20K away from home, so it was going to take a while.

It turned out, Josh started to feel a little better and the two of them actually remounted and made it to the town of Lucan before Jimmy picked them up in the sag wagon. Josh said he probably could have made it back to the house, even. That’s a pretty solid recovery!

I did manage to come to my senses and chase him down with my iPhone recording:

I only joke about Josh’s struggles because he’s an old friend and I’ve been there. Not only was I in Hawaii when Wendy Ingram and Sian Welch had their epic stagger/fall finish (of course, I was still on the course for a while…) but I’ve actually woken up in a canoe full of ice water at the end of a race I don’t even remember finishing! And yes, I also threw up, but mine was out of the side of the canoe. And yes, it’s also all on video.

See, Josh, it could have been much worse!

I still need to convert old VHS to digital.

We all got changed out of our silly suits, grabbed tasty beverages out of our respective coolers, and got ready for some sausages, burgers, and some Supercross.

Thanks for hosting a fun ride and a good night of bench-racing, Dean Martin. Oh, and can we call the group The Rat Trap Pack? Oh, and he even had a perfect ping pong table, so we were able to rally around for a while during downtimes in the broadcast, too.

Tyler Medaglia Commits to Full FMSQ Series

Tyler Medaglia from Brookfield, NS has announced he will commit to the entire 2025 FMSQ series on his Valley Yamaha. Instead of chasing the MX Nationals, he will focus on Canada’s most competitive off-road series.

Here’s a look at the schedule:

A little bird told me that GDR Honda riders Ryder McNabb and Noah Viney decided to line up for a moto at the TVR race at Gopher Dunes this past weekend.

This same little bird added that Ryder lapped “half the field in a 5-lap race!” It sounds like the 2-time Canadian 250 champion is ready to pick up where he left off up here in Canada.

TVR is the very popular club organization that sees an ton of Vet and Beginner riders at every race. If you haven’t raced in a while or are looking to get started, it’s a great place to start, just ask the little bird…

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Have a great week, everyone. We’re inching closer to the start of the Canadian Triple Crown Series Motocross Nationals! And if you haven’t applied for your credentials yet, the deadline in May 15th. I guess I’d better get on it!