Kamloops Photo Report

Jun 7 2010 - 4:27pm - James Lissimore

Well, the 2010 Monster Energy CMRC Canadian National season is officially underway. All the off season bench racing is finished and some questions have been answered while many more new ones have popped up. Round one of the series took place yesterday at Whispering Pines Raceway in Kamloops, British Columbia and despite forecasts for rain, the threatening skies held off and it ended up being a pretty nice day. In the end it was a Blackfoot sweep, with Tyler Medaglia taking the MX2 win and his teammate, Colton Facciotti, putting an exclamation point on another dominant performance in the MX1 class. Of course there's much more to the story than that so let's check out what happened in Kamloops....

Click on the first image to view as a slideshow.

Randy Hall is back for another season as head referee.

A record turnout showed out for the first national - 77 MX2 riders and 52 in MX1. Good to see with all the talk of the economy these day.

Kaven Benoit made the move from Kawasaki's to KTM this year and ran third for much of the first MX2 moto. Tyler Medaglia got him on the last lap, relegating him to fourth.

Parker Allison takes the low line while Kory Snelgrove skies it out.

Dylan Kaelin is now on Suzuki's. He rode to 8-7 moto scores for 7th overall in MX2.

Leading Edge support rider, Kohl Canaday made his Pro National debut and went 10-10 for 11th. He would have been in the top 10 if not for his teammate, Teddy Maier, going DNF-2.

Kyle Keast is back to a combination that he likes: riding a Maching Racing Honda with his dad, Jamey, spinning the wrenches.

The Blackfoot duo, Dusty Klatt(2) and Colton Facciotti play a little cat and mouse in practice.

The Medaglia brothers wait to head out for practice. They found each other again later on the second moto podium.

Raise your hand if you won the MX2 class.

Formerly Monster Energy's man at the Nationals, Paul Rak was at Kamloops helping out his buddy, Shawn Greenaway.

How can you not feel bad for Kyle Beaton? Two years in a row he doesn't make it out of Kamloops unscathed. A simple tip over in practice left him with a broken thumb.

Liam O'Farrell is racing with backing from Gopher Dunes, hosts of round five of the series.

Kevin Rookstool takes a digger in practice.

Dusty Klatt gives his student, Spencer Knowles, a pep talk.

Apparently you have to be really tall to ride a 450 for KTM. Kornel Nemeth(l) and Ryan Millar talk with Brock Hoyer while waiting for the opening ceremonies that didn't happen.

Brett Lee is just excited to be here.

There were a lot of Manitobans in the house. FXR guy, Aaron Wiebe(l) and FOM(friend of Matthes) and CTI guy, Trevor Greaves.

Longtime mechanic JP Savard(l) is working with Felix Trepanier(r) on the French TV broadcast this season.

A healthy crowd came out to check out all the action.

(l-r) Josh Demuth, Bobby Kiniry and Troy Adams share a laugh while waiting for the start of the first MX2 moto.

The Monster Energy Leading Edge Kawasaki duo of Teddy Maier(1) and Shawn Rife rocketed out of the gate for the start of the first moto.

Kyle McGlynn was not so lucky.

The track was slightly overwatered before the moto.

Maier suffered a flat tire and was forced to pull in.

Shawn Rife lead wire to wire to take his first Canadian moto win.

Parker Allison battles with Spencer Knowles. Allison finished 8th overall on the day.

Eric Nye was solid as ever. He rode onto the podium with 3-5 moto scores for third overall.

Rife showed serious speed all day. Motor troubles slowed him in moto two but he established himself as one of the main favourites for the title.

Tyler Medaglia had one of the best rides of the day, coming from last all the way to grab third on the last lap.

Denaye Giroux(3) and Shelby Turner(50) split moto wins in the Women's class. Turner took the overall with a 2-1 vs Giroux's 1-3, with Karly Pozdnekoff(5) taking third.

Kornel Nemeth actually got a good start in the first MX1 moto, coming out of the first turn in second. He couldn't keep pace with Facciotti though and finished second.

Brock Hoyer showed good speed in his MX1 debut, running in fourth before getting tired and dropping back. His 7-11 scores gave him 9th overall. Hoyer had been really sick coming into the weekend so hopefully he'll have more stamina when the series heads to Edmonton.

We haven't seen Freddy Karrle in Canada in a couple years but he showed up on a 450 in Kamloops and finished 6th overall.

Keast had a great ride going in the first MX1 moto as he was all over Dusty Klatt for third place....

...but he stalled it and dropped back to fifth.

Freestyler and former National competitor, Regan Sieg, decided to take a break from hitting ramps to ride his first National in 11 years. Sieg finished 28th in the first moto.

After finishing third in the series last year, Bobby Kiniry is looking to make the next step and battle with Facciotti and Klatt. He took the third spot on the podium with 4-3 moto scores.

The Monster Energy Cernic's Kawasaki duo of Troy Adams(65) and Josh Demuth didn't have the day that I'm sure they were hoping for. Adams finished 8th overall and Demuth finished in 10th.