Grab another cup for this week’s Monday Morning Coffee where we talk about what happened this weekend in Motocross and more…
By Billy Rainford
It felt great to be back at the races this past weekend. I made the trip to the International Centre for the FIM AMA Arenacross Championship rounds 4 and 5, Friday and Saturday nights. It was in conjunction with the North American Motorcycle Supershow and I think by all accounts it was a success.
I’ve been going to the Chilliwack Arenacross races for decades and historically Friday nights are less attended than Saturday nights. While this trend was seen in Toronto this weekend, I was impressed with the number of people who came to the races on Friday.
They brought in a bunch of temporary bleachers for spectators and every space on the benches were taken. And it wasn’t even just family and friends! Many people heard the announcements by Dave Bell in the main show halls about the races and wandered over to see what was causing all the noise.
We’ve wanted some indoor racing in Ontario for a ling time now and this may be something that takes hold and returns in the future. Fingers crossed.
The series heads to Memphis next (January 24th) and is then scheduled to cross north of the border again for its second double-header in Calgary, Alberta, on January 30-31.
The big draw for those of us who follow the racing was the ongoing battle between Canadian #16 Cole Thompson and #200 Ryan Breece. They had some of the most memorable AX racing at the previous round in Loveland, Colorado, and the hope was that it would boil over on home soil in front of the partisan crowd.
While Cole was celebrating the rivalry and chaotic racing, Ryan said he was staying away from social media and seemed to be ignoring all the hype. Well, that’s how it looked at least. Who knows if he was actually looking at Instagram all week or not. Either way, he was hiding his feelings better than Cole was.
Friday came and went without any shenanigans between the two, but on Saturday, Cole rammed into Ryan during qualifying but said that it was because he lost his rear brake. They played some cat and mouse for a lap and then got down to business.
The rear brake issues were a real thing because Cole would later miss the sight lap while they worked on trying to sort out the problem with the rear wheel. In fact, as the 2:00 hold was coming to an end, Cole rolled up to the line, took his place on the gate, and it dropped just seconds later. It was pretty exciting for the crowd and crew.
I managed to throw some gas on the fire during the Friday night pst-race press conference when I asked them both how their week went leading up to this round after all the action in Colorado.
Cole was happy to talk about it and even try to egg Ryan on a bit more, but that’s when Ryan said he’d stayed away from his IG feed to avoid all the comments. Meh, someone had to ask them about the elephant in the room!
I thought #98 Austin Politelli was in the best position to capitalize on their beef and had him pegged as the winner in Toronto, but Breece kept his head and won all 6 races.
Because there were only 11 AX Pro riders at this round, they decided the best way to keep the crowd entertained was to go to a Triple Crown type set up with 3 Mains with Olympic scoring. Qualifying was done earlier in the day and all the crowd saw when the doors opened was racing.
I was really impressed to see the engagement Saturday evening at the Pit Party. The crowd came through the doors and the line up to meet the riders was long and enthusiastic. All-in-all, it was a really good show!
Unfortunately, there was an internet situation Friday night and they were unable to do the live broadcast for that round. Because of that, at the request of people online, I went live on our Instagram page for the 3rd and final race of the night.
That was the race that #500 Julien Benek would swap the lead with Breece no less than 4 or 5 times! The crowd was on its feet for this one. Julien found himself on the ground earlier in the night, so it was great to see him get the holeshot and battle with one of the best AX riders in the world like that.
The crew put together a highlight video of Friday night and you can check that out here:
The Ryde TV broadcast was back to normal on Saturday so I didn’t go live at all. I did do a dhort iPhone edit of the final race:
The official highlights will be up on YouTube soon.
They fit 3 amateur races into the schedule both nights and the crowd loved it.
On Sunday there was a very full day of amateur racing. And get this, there were like 3 times the normal number of entries for Amateur Day! Ontario came out to race!
Also, they were very impressed that there was one section of the bleachers that were full all day long for the amateur races.
We’ll have a photo report from the day up as soon as I can get to it.
I didn’t know who the fast guy on #47 was on Sunday. It turns out his name is Bo Tucker from Butler, Missouri and he’s actually a C rider!
He and #5 Zach Phifer were the fastest riders on the day and they met in the Schoolboy 2 class. In the Main, Bo made a pass on early leader #10 Kosten Hebb and then Zach moved into 2nd and finished just 2 seconds behind him at the flag. Lap times? Tucker’s best was 26.287 and Phifer’s was 26.625.
We should mention that #211 Jack Wright raced +25 and his fastest lap was just off them with a best of 26.733. Not bad!
[EDIT: It’s been brought to my attention that Jack Wright actually had a fastest time of 25.976 in the Vet Open Main! The old boy still has some speed.]
Being in Toronto to support this race meant that I was not at Anaheim 1 at Angel Stadium in California. We had 3 Canadians to keep an eye on in the 250 West class. Let’s have a look at how their days went:
#800 Preston Masciangelo:
Q: 23rd (1:10.459
Heat 2: 12th
LCQ: 7th (just 4 seconds out of 4th)
#585 Blake Davies:
Q: 28th (1:11.047
Heat 1: 20th
LCQ: 12th
#214 Tyler Gibbs:
Q: 33rd (1:11.738)
Heat 2: 18th
LCQ: 13th (just 1.5 seconds behind Davies)
Great news that neither Malcolm Stewart or Justin Barcia weren’t hurt worse in that crash.
OK, it’s after noon already, so we’ll end this one here. I hope that got you through another cup. I’ll get the post-race interviews from Toronto up right now, so watch for that.
Have a great week, everyone.
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