Frid'Eh Update #37 Presented by Troy Lee Designs Canada

Sponsored by: 

By James Lissimore, Kyle Carruthers, Allison Kennedy, Pam Moore and Billy Rainford

Hey everyone and welcome to this week’s edition of the Frid’eh Update, brought to you by Troy Lee Designs, right here on www.directmotocross.com!

I guess you can say that this week marks the first real week of the off-season, as the final round of the Lucas Oil AMA National Motocross season took place last weekend at Southern California’s Pala Raceway and our own Canadian Champion, Colton Facciotti was on the line as a member of the Troy Lee Designs Honda team. He certainly did our country proud by almost grabbing the holeshot in moto one, running second for a few laps and ultimately finishing 8^th. Unfortunately, things didn’t go as well for Colt in the second moto as he went down in a first turn crash and had to call it a day. Hopefully his rides in these last three rounds opened a door for him to get a ride full time in the US next year but only time will tell. There’s a lot of emphasis on Supercross results and Colt’s experience is a bit on the light side. I guess time will tell if anyone is willing to gamble on his speed and skill paying off.

I wasn’t around on Saturday to catch any of the coverage from Pala as I was spending my first weekend at home in two months hiking up Mt. Cheam in Chilliwack, taking advantage of the glorious sunny weather we’ve been experiencing here on the west coast but luckily I was able to check out the excellent coverage provided by “Bigwave” Billy Rainford who, with the help of Troy Lee Designs, travelled down to Pala to cover Colt’s day. Billy will be on here shortly to tell us about his day so big thanks to him for all his hard work.

While Pala was taking place on Saturday, my only contact with moto was checking out the Popkum MX track(center) from 7000ft above at the summit of Mt. Cheam. James Lissimore photo

I need to touch on this week’s rider, as we’re into Update # 37, which means Kenny Henry is the featured rider this week. I don’t know much about Kenny, I actually had this conversation with Bigwave this summer that we had seen him out at the West rounds on a KTM and didn’t know much about him so I asked KTM’s Andy White and he mentioned that he’s from Ohio and he’s a good guy. We were actually going to do a Privateer Profile on him after Ste Julie but then we never saw him again so Kenny, if you’re reading this, send in an email and tell us a bit more about yourself. From checking out the results, his best finish this season was at Gopher Dunes where he went 11-13 for 11^th overall in the MX2 class.

Ohio's Kenny Henry in action at Kamloops. James Lissimore photo

Ok, other than that, it was a pretty light week for me in the moto news department as I caught up on things after being on the road for two months. I did put together my Top 20 images of 2011 from AMA Supercross and Motocross that you check out over on Matthes’ PulpMX site: http://www.pulpmx.com/content/lissimores-top-20make-21-photos-2011

And with no new races for me this past week, I thought I’d share a few of my favorite images from the 2011 Parts Canada Trans Can for this week’s edition of the ThorMX Thursday Wallpapers, which you can check out here if you haven’t already: http://www.directmotocross.com/news/features/2011/09/thormx-thursday-wallpapers-2011-transcan-amateurs

I’ve had a few requests from people to order prints from the photos that I put together for the Trans Can slideshow a few weeks ago so I’ve also added those to my website. You can check them out here: http://jkliss.photoshelter.com/gallery/2011-Walton-TransCan-Amateurs/G00001iLRaqqZFhU/P0000cJdxk0kIu7c

As I get time to catch up I’ll sort through the rest of my Trans Can images and add another gallery too so stay tuned for that.

That’s about it for me this week. The only thing I have to add is that I just got word from Bigwave that Cole Thompson has just signed up for the Montreal Supercross so it should be interesting to see how the Canadian prodigy fares in his first indoor race. I can’t wait to see how he stacks up.

Ok, I’m going to wrap this up and pass it over to Carruthers...

I still can’t believe how fast the weeks are going. I know I say this every week but now that I see the leaves are changing on the trees I also see that our time left to ride before the deep freeze comes is starting to run out. I feel I may have to take a note of the enduro guys books this winter and stud a set of tires up to play on the ice or in the fields.

Speaking of Enduro racing, the CEC series hits Motopark this weekend for the final two rounds and it is going to be a good one. I know Hayden and crew have the track in great shape as long with everyone else helping out with the extreme tests and single track. I think I am going to wake up before the sun tomorrow and drive up to check it out. I wanted to cheer on my buddies Brian Wojonarowski and Adam Milson as well as meet Jason Schrage in person for the first time, as the Machine racing team will be there. As well as say Hi to RTR Performance rider Bobby Prochnau, who almost killed me two years when he took me for my first ever off-road ride in Kamloops ... I still shake in fear when I think about it! The Husqavarna team will also be there and I would expect one of the Husky riders to do some damage once again on the podium. Maybe we will see Guy Giroux back up on the box!

Speaking of Husky, Donk will be taking us through the paces of our TC 449 test unit next week! Spikman photo

Lots of stuff going on in Ontario this Sunday, CMRC is at RJ’s Motosport Park up near Barrie Ontario. MMRS is back at its home track at Muttco Mountain, OCMC is doing its 6 hour race. For info on all of them, check our breaking news section!

Of course you can’t forget about the MXON. I really wish Canada was sending a team as this was the one year I was really hoping to go. I’m not going to rant about this too much as there are many obstacles, politics, funding and more that many of us don’t know about or really understand. It is always cool to have someone to cheer for at this event. I loved following the progress of Keast, Benoit and Medaglia last year so here's hoping we will be lining up next year! Our friends at www.racerxonline.com have a lot of great coverage there this weekend so check that out as well as www.pulpmx.com as Matthes is over there to!

That’s all for me this week time for me to go get hydrated as I attempt to take on the 6 hour race at OCMC with my riding partner Dustin Heacock. Somebody better have a defibrillator as this desk job is catching up to my cardio training!

Now here's Bigwave Billy to tell us all about Pala...

The first-ever big motocross race I attended was just 50k west of where the final outdoor national was held last Saturday in Pala. My family was visiting relatives in Dana Point, California and we just happened to drive down the coast and noticed a sign for the 1981 USGP at Carlsbad the following day. My dad and I jumped at the chance and I’ve been a bit of a ‘moto-junkie’ ever since.

I had a very stressful start to my trip because I am flagged at the border due to a ridiculous ‘T-shirt infraction’ back in January and then a United flight got mysteriously cancelled in Chicago. I was forced to stay overnight and catch the first flight to LAX in the morning only to arrive at the track after all timed qualifiers were finished.

Some things never change in southern California; the weather was a perfect 80 degrees with zero humidity, it’s where a lot of the ‘beautiful people’ live, they really support motocross,  and I still cut my own hair.

I set up my area in the media tent and made my way straight over to the TLD Lucas Oil Honda rig to see how our own #361 Colton Facciotti made out earlier. He mentioned the track was fast, rutted, had lots of braking bumps, and was full of huge jumps; basically, perfect, he said.  He knew he was fit and was looking forward to a great day in the California sun.

Facciotti readies his gate at the final round of the AMA Motocross Series at Pala Raceway. Bigwave photo

He picked a gate about 10 spots outside of the ‘doghouse’ and railed the berm on the outside of the first corner which put him on the inside for the second corner. It was cool to see him disappear into the distance whipping and scrubbing in 4^th place. When he came back into view, he was up into 2^nd place and chasing #800 Mike Alessi out front.  He is listed in the results sheets as having held onto second for the first two laps. Not too bad!

He had all the main contenders bearing down on him throughout the entire moto and, with a little more experience running up front in the US, he will feel more comfortable and won’t leave inside lines open which allowed riders like #17 Justin Barcia to line him up for a serious stuffing (see video).  He finished the first moto in 8^th position and had lap times very close to those who ended up in 4^th-6^th place. 

Colton tried ‘second verse, same as the first’ and rounded the turn one on the outside berm again in the second moto. He was up near the front,  but as he and #26 Michael Byrne got pretty close, #24 Brett Mettcalfe slid to the outside and stood Byrne up which caused the ugly chain reaction that would take Facciotti out of the race and briefly into the Astersk medical rig (see photo report). He would be scored with a 39^th in the second moto.

8-39 gave Colton 14^th overall on the day. Would you believe he scored 48 points in the final three events which put him in 27^th on the year!? Not bad considering he was forced to DNF 2 of the 3 second motos!

In other news, Dean Wilson is the 250 National Champ and Ryan Villopoto did what Ryan Dungey did last year and won both the SX and 450 MX titles this year, but that’s another story.

I have a hair appointment this afternoon, so I should really get going…thanks. 

Thanks Billy. It's Allison checking in now and I just wanted to give a shout out to Billy for all his video coverage from Pala. I, for one, have really started to look forward to the post-race videos, and am thinking that video coverage will be playing a bigger and bigger role here at DMX and on the web in general. I am admittedly out of the moto loop as I am off to shoot my fourth wedding in a row this Saturday, followed by a committment to shoot the Centurion 100 mile cycling race at Blue Mountain on Sunday morning at 6 a.m. sharp. If I'm not too bleary-eyed after that, I might make the trek to Moto Park and check out the enduro action. 

I noticed that Canada's own Jolene Van Vugt launched her newly re-designed website today, built and finessed by DMX's own Dawn McClintock along with her hubby Marty of Tooth and Nail designs. You can check it out at http://jolenevanvugt.com/ Dawn has built quite the moto site portfolio now also having done Andrew Short's site and the Pulp MX site. Need your own site? Checkout their work at http://www.toothandnail.ca/welcome

Also a huge welcome home to Talon Medaglia as he has finally made it home to the Medgalia family's Kemptville home, leaving behind the hospital. I've never heard a new mom more excited about sleep deprivation as Heidi Cooke and here's hoping she, Tyler and Talon can make it back to Nova Scotia very soon. 

Pam Moore is checking in now... 

My attempts to get an idea for my contribution for today’s Frid’Eh Update by playing Kinect Adventures on XBox didn’t really go according to plan.  I think it just wasted more time than anything else, but it was fun.  Now I sit here, laptop open, reminiscing about what has occurred so far in 2011.  There are still a few races this fall for moto fans to look forward to, Motocross Des Nations this weekend, Montreal SX October 1st and the Monster Energy Cup on October 15th, but what we’ve seen so far in 2011 definitely has not disappointed.      

The 2011 season started off with the supercross series and A1.  After the extensive injury list that formed during the 2010 season, I think all fingers were crossed that everyone would make it through the entire 2011 season in one piece.  For the most part, that was the case for the top runners.  Of all of the supercross titles to win, Justin Barcia was definitely most dominant claiming the Lites East title over Dean Wilson by 22 points.  The West would be a different story with Broc Tickle only taking the title by 6 points over Eli Tomac.  Josh Hansen wasn’t far behind in 3rd and if it wasn’t for a nagging broken hand, it could have been an entire different story for the West.  The big bike class would bring one of the best seasons we’ve had in a while.  The biggest surprise of the year may have easily been Chad Reed.  After failing to nab a contract for the 2011 season, Reed took it upon himself to start his own team.  This was probably the best thing that could have happened to Reed and his career.  The venture seemed to light a little fire under Reed’s hiney and he became the rider we hadn’t seen in a long time.  He would miss out on winning the Supercross title by a mere 4 points to Ryan Villopoto, and last year champ, Ryan Dungey, would finish out the top 3, not far behind Reed.                 

When it came time for the outdoors we would see Reed, Dungey and Villopoto battle all season long for the title.  After his horrific crash at Millville, Reed seemed to fall a bit off the pace of RD and RV.  The season would wrap up with Villopoto taking his second title of the season by 12 points over Dungey.  The Lites class didn’t mirror the indoor season quite like the big bikes did.  Barcia and Tickle left the little bike domination to the Pro Circuit trio of Dean Wilson, Tyla Rattray and Blake Baggett.  The 3 teammates would battle the entire season, swapping overall wins.  Wilson’s consistency would pay off for him as he won the title over Rattray by 66 points, and Baggett would take 3rd only 3 points behind Rattray.  

There was a bit more domination shown throughout the World Championships.  Antonio Cairoli won the MX1 class over Steven Frossard by 124 points, but Frossard would battle with Clement Desalle all season for second place and only took the number 2 spot by 11 points.  The MX2 class would see a closer battle for the top spot by two of the youngest riders to contest the GPs.  Ken Roczen would win his first World Championship title over Jeffrey Herlings by 19 points. Tommy Searle would finish 3rd, 59 points behind the young bucks.  

On our own soil we saw the domination from the Blackfoot duo of Colton Facciotti and Tyler Medaglia. Facciotti took the MX1 title over teammate Dusty Klatt by 41 points, and T Dags claimed the MX2 title with convincing domination by 79 points over Kaven Benoit.  Even more exciting for Canadians in 2011 was the fact that we got to see some of our guys head south of the border with success.  Cole Thompson started it off by winning the 450 B Stock title at Loretta’s by going 1-1-1.  He can now join the ranks of Kade Walker and Bill Van Vugt Sr. as Canadians who have won a title at Loretta’s.  Following the CMRC National season up here, Jeremy Medaglia, Tyler Medaglia, Kaven Benoit and Colton Facciotti all made the trip down to Southwick to contest the AMA series.  The Medaglia’s would hold their own at Southwick, but Facciotti came out with an impressive 5th place finish.  Colt’s performance landed him a ride with the Troy Lee Designs Honda team for the remaining two races.  There is no doubt that Facciotti should be racing in the US for the 2012 season.  He’s proven that he’s got top 10 speed already and can only get faster as he becomes more comfortable.        

Maybe in the next couple years we’ll see Facciotti and Thompson throwing themselves in the mix up front with Dungey and Villopoto.  Regardless of who it is, there are a lot of exciting things happening in the moto world right now, with so much talent and there are definitely going to be some good title battles in the years to come.    

Thanks everyone for reading DMX and have a fantastic fall weekend.