Monday Morning Coffee

By Billy Rainford

I hope everyone had a great weekend and is ready for another exciting school or work week. Ya, whatever. Around these parts (Southwestern Ontario) the weather looked pretty bleak as we headed into the weekend, but it didn’t really get that bad. In fact, Gopher Dunes held its 6th Annual Sandstorm event and they got pretty lucky, all things considered.

It was their first-ever Arenacross race on Saturday, so we stopped by to catch some of the racing action. They pulled a nice chunk of the starting line from the main track and made an 11-person gate on the clay-based AX track (yes, they had to bring that clay in).

When I spoke to Derek Schuster for the Frid’Eh Update, he mentioned that they’d tarped the entire track to protect it from the rain. As we all know, the main track can take a ton of rain before it falls apart, but the clay on the new track meant it was susceptible to the wet.

It did get a little rutted and one-lined, but I think they had to be happy with their first-time AX event. The nice thing about it is they have built a ridge all around the track (like the bank down the main area of the other track) and you can simply stand on that and watch the racing on the entire track. I stood and shot some raw video of the Pro Open and Supermini second motos. You can watch those here:

It was great to see #2 Honda Canada GDR Fox Racing rider, Colton Facciotti, back on the race track. As we all know, he had a really rough day out east at Pleasant Valley in Truro, Nova Scotia, that took him out of action for the rest of the summer. On his big 450, he was the class of the field, but AX #5, Brock Leitner, gave him a pretty good challenge, in the first moto at least.

Young #184 Tanner Ward‘s progress is coming along nicely, too. The Woodstock rider took 3rd place and handled the tricky conditions very well.

Nathan Bles was also on the track on a borrowed Honda. He didn’t get out to very good starts and found himself having to leave the main line as he tried to make his way to the front. The wet clay meant it was risky trying to get around anyone, but Nathan had to if he wanted to advance at all.

I couldn’t find the actual results, so we’ll have to wait for those.

Denver Endurocross Results

ENDUROCROSS DENVER, COLORADO. OCTOBER 1, 2016 RESULTS

DENVER PRO RESULTS (Includes bonus points)
Overall	Number	Brand	Name	City,State	Points
1	10	HSQ	Colton Haaker	Perris, CA	27
2	1	KTM	Cody Webb	Royal Oaks, CA	22
3	15	BTA	Max Gerston	Scottsdale, AZ	20
4	14	KTM	Ty Tremaine	Gardnerville, NV	19
5	7	BTA	Kyle Redmond	Lake Hughes, CA	16
6	3	HSQ	Mike Brown	Bluff City, TN	16
7	696	KTM	Noah Kepple	Alpine, CA	14
8	575	KTM	Nick Thompson	Alpine, UT	13
9	84	HSQ	Trystan Hart	Invermere, BC	12
10	4	GAS	Geoff Aaron	Temecula, CA	11
11	927	HSQ	Wyatt Hart	Invermere, BC	10
12	118	KTM	Cory Graffunder	Redland, CA	9

DENVER, WOMEN’S MAIN
Overall	Number	Brand	Name	City,State	Points
1	50	KTM	Shelby Turner	Barons, AB	25
2	31	BTA	Morgan Tanke	Riverside, CA	22
3	2	KTM	Rachel Gutish	Terre Haute, IN	20
4	5	BTA	Melissa Harten	Calgary, AB	18
5	598	KTM	Ryann Bradley	Sanger, CA	16
6	71	KTM	Almeda Sawatzky	Cochrane, AB	15

WOMEN’S POINTS AFTER ROUND FIVE
Overall	Brand	Name	Total
1	KTM	Shelby Turner	122
2	BTA	Morgan Tanke	111
3	KTM	Rachel Gutish	98
4	KTM	Ryann Bradley	65
6	BTA	Melissa Harten	38
5	HON	Tarah Gieger	36
7	KTM	Brooke Cosner	18
8	HSQ	Lexi Pechout	16
9	KTM	Britney Gallegos	16
10	KAW	Bibi Carmouche	15

DENVER, AMATEUR MAIN
Overall	Number	Brand	Name	City,State
1	78	YAM	Steven Stultz	Peoria, AZ
2	21x	HSQ	Kevin Dupuis	Common SE, AB
3	926	HON	Spenser Wilton	Calgary, AB
4	94	KTM	Carter York	Flower Mound, TX
5	17	KTM	Jack Sawatzky	Cochrane, AB

DENVER, VET MAIN
Overall	Number	Brand	Name	City,State
1	63	BTA	Stephen Foord	Calgary, AB
2	8x	ALT	Kurt Nicoll	Temecula, CA
3	17	KTM	Jack Sawatzky	Cochrane, AB
4	209	HSQ	David Stirm	Snohomish, WA
5	580	HSQ	Derek Raycraft	Westminster, CO

ISDE 2016 | Circuito de Navarra, Spain

If you want to follow along with how Team Canada ISDE is doing, you can do so on their Facebook Page HERE.

October 11-16. Good luck, Team!

Bucket List Event | Weston Beach Race – Oct 7-9

Maybe next year…

It’s going to be a busy start to the week here. I’m off to Mica Sport Canada up in beautiful Bracebridge, Ontario, to visit the gang at Scott Sports. Tuesday, we get the opportunity to ride the 2017 Yamaha YZ450F and 250F up at Motopark. Jeff McConkey will be our Junior/Vet level rider while Yamaha rider, Hayden Halstead, will once again be our Pro guy to put the new machines through their paces.

Here’s the little video we put together last year when we got to ride the 2016 Off Road line-up at Motopark:

2016 Yamaha Off-Road Press Day at Motopark from Directmotocross.com on Vimeo.

Canadian AX Tour

We’re only one week away from the start of the Canadian AX Tour. As I sat here typing this morning, I had the local London news on TV and a very nice commercial came on for round 1 next weekend at Hiawatha Raceway in Sarnia, Ontario. As far as I know, Andy White and I will, once again, be the live announcers in the booth for the MAVTV coverage of the series. I’m looking forward to bringing all the action to everyone online, so be sure to catch all the action next Saturday.

Future West AX Starts the Following Week

Have a great week, everyone. It’s time to hop onto the beloved 401 and head through Toronto before making the turn north on the 400 and then onto the beautiful #11 and into Muskoka ‘Cottage Country.’ The town of Bracebridge is easily one of the nicest towns in Canada.