It’s time for Monday Morning Coffee where we talk about some of what happened over the weekend in Motocross and more…
By Billy Rainford
It was a big weekend with lots to talk about so this week’s weather report will be short: Look out your window and dress accordingly. It’s going to be all over the place. In fact, there are light snowflakes in the air right now.
We were back in Cleveland, Ohio, for the first time in 30 years! Wow. Do we have time for a short, non-moto story from Cleveland in 1996? Yes we do.
The previous year, the ITU Triathlon World Championships were in Cancun, Mexico and the following year they were in New Zealand. The year I qualified for my age group and went in 1996 they were in Cleveland. Yep, I got screwed.
I won’t bore you with the entire story, just how it started.
We may have actually started in that far inlet at the top of the photo. Either way, there is like a 10-foot drop into the water, which is pretty gross to begin with. So, we’re out doing our warm-ups before our wave took off and then you got out of the water and waited on the pier for your wave to start.
I’m standing there trying to stay limber when the starter is yelling at everyone else to get out of the water or they aren’t going to start the….BANG, the gun goes off and away my entire age group goes with me standing on the pier like an idiot. Of course, my dad shot it all on video so I’m standing there with my arms in there like, “WTF??!!“
I had to dive off the pier and into the water at the very back of the pack and, of course, my goggles came of as I entered the water.
When I came out of the water and looked at my watch, I knew my day was going to be garbage. Oh, I’ll also mention that the roads were so rough that my computer and water bottles fell off my bike early into it. Ohio and Michigan roads are not known to be the most well-maintained you’re going to find, to say the very least.
When I finally crossed the finish line it was then that I was told that the swim was actually long and that my time was pretty damn good! I wish I’d known that when I exited the water. 🤦♂️ What a terrible experience for my one-and-only trip to the International/Olympic distance World Championships.
I actually did qualify for the race the following year in New Zealand, but decided not to go because I’d also qualified for my 2nd Hawaii Ironman, but that’s another story altogether. Let’s just say, there’s a muumuu involved and leave it at that. Is it on video? Of course it is!
Holy crap, enough about me! Now, where was I?
Unfortunately, #66 Cole Thompson from Brigden, Ontario, didn’t make the short trip to Ohio for this one. He told me when I asked him why that he’s a “fair weather only type of rider.” Lol
That meant that I had really no Canadian angle to work on for this round. Fortunately, when the traffic is just right Cleveland is less than 4 1/2 hours from my hometown of London, Ontario.
Also, I was able to find gas at $3.43 per gallon in Ohio. However, I’d just filled up at the previous exit for $3.75… Don’t you just hate that?! I punched the air for the next few miles.
Jordan Wilsey from RussoGraphy518 was going to be at this round with me to shoot some video, so we got a hotel just outside the city. Can I just say that leaving Cleveland’s downtown at 4:45 pm on a Friday afternoon really sucks. It wasn’t even the cars but there are stop lights every 10 feet it seems like! It was absolute torture driving the 10 miles to the “fancy” Comfort Inn in Independence. Truthfully, it was probably the nicest Comfort Inn I’ve ever seen and it was at the top of a hill overlooking the city, sort of.
He got some new gear and his slow motion clips are butter smooth!
It was a Triple Crown format, so that can either be great if you’re spectating or a drag if you’re trying to cover the event. What are your thoughts on this format?
The big news of the day was #3 Eli Tomac crashing in the whoops during first qualifying and heading of the track on the back of the medics mule. I know we aren’t supposed to play favourites as media peeps, but the races are just better when Eli is in them and fighting for wins, I think.
I stood in the hallway before the 2nd qualifier with Doc Bodnar. I know ha can’t say anything about specific things but he did tell me he himself didn’t know if Eli was going to try and ride the 2nd one.
Sure enough, there he came down the hall after everyone else was set up at the entrance to the stadium. Right on, he was going to give it a go.
He walked past and I could hear him say that his shoulder was fine. At that point, I thought that was the main concern, so I thought he was back and ready to go.
It turns out it was his hip that was giving him the issue and he pulled off the track pretty much right away and was done for the night.
#96 Hunter Lawrence had another one of those off nights which allowed #94 Ken Roczen to thrill the crowd and take the win.
Now, I’ve been to a lot of races. It’s pretty safe to say that I’ve been to more than most. I don’t remember ever seeing a more popular race win than I saw on Saturday night. The crowd did the wave and screamed with Kenny his entire last lap. It was incredible to see and hear live.
Kenny could obviously hear and feel it and did a nice one-handed wheelie down the mechanics straight and then tossed a beautiful whip over the finish line. Seriously, I doubt the TV audio did it justice. It was pretty wild to see.
And now Kenny is just 1 point down on Hunter with 3 races left to run. They have a pretty big gap over the rest, so this looks like it’s going to be a 2-horse battle in Philly, Denver, and then Salt Lake City.
450 Points:
- 96 Hunter Lawrence 286
- 94 Ken Roczen 285
- 1 Cooper Webb 264
- 3 Eli Tomac 255
- 32 Justin Cooper 233
- 4 Chase Sexton 180
- 17 Joey Savatgy 176
- 27 Malcolm Stewart 160
- 46 Justin Hill 148
- 26 Jorge Prado 147
in the 250 class, #25 Nate Thrasher made it pretty clear at the pre-race press conference that he is looking for a ride in 2027. He did exactly what you need to do in that situation and went out and won the Triple Crown ahead of #180 Landen Gordon and #37 Cole Davies.
Wait, back it up. Did I say Landen Gordon in 2nd??? Yep.
We’ve had young phenoms move up and do well instantly, but I would argue that this wasn’t expected from Landen yet. Am I wrong on this? What an impressive finish.
Davies is comfortably out front with 2 rounds left for the East Regional riders.
250 Points:
- 37 Cole Davies 181
- 10 Seth Hammaker 160
- 58 Daxton Bennick 138
- 22 Coty Schock 119
- 25 Nate Thrasher 116
- 89 Devin Simonson 106
- 30 Jo Shimoda 100
- 53 Henry Miller 77
- 163 Pierce Brown 63
We’re off to Philadelphia this week and Jordan is making the trip with me again. At this point, Cole Thompson isn’t sure whether he’ll be on the line or not. I hope so, but we’ll see.
AMO Round 1 at Gopher Dunes
I won’t get into too much detail here in MMC, but I want to talk a little about the racing Sunday at Gopher Dunes for Round 1 of the 2026 AMO Ontario Provincial Championships.
We all saw the entry list last week, so we knew we were in for a very early season treat. Unfortunately, the weather didn’t really cooperate for Sunday’s racing. The temperature plummeted and we were in the single digits and then it was almost a whiteout snowstorm for a while before it stopped and cleared up for the final 3 or 4 motos of the day.
They didn’t break the Pro/Am classes into 250 and 450, so everyone was in there together on the bike of their choice.
Let’s start right a t the top. #9 Dylan Wright was his usual self out there. He was blinding fast with a small dash of something-could-go-wrong-at-any-moment sort of thing. You know what I’m talking about. He was 40 seconds out in front of #12 Sebastien Racine in the first moto, so that really says something about how prepared he is.
Speaking of Seb, I haven’t gone through my video yet, but he came through the very fast mechanics area and into the following left corner and went over the berm, almost into my lap! It was so close that Jeff Ryan came over afterward to let me know he had an extra pair of underwear in the GDR shop, if I needed it. I hope I didn’t flinch.
We all know Sebastien is very good on a 450, but everyone is going to have to be even faster if they want to get a sniff of Dylan again this summer. It will be interesting to see how much #15 Jess Pettis has improved to see if he can run the pace this summer.
Failing that, the job gets left to new Canadian racer Harri Kullas from Estonia and his Red Bull KTM. He’s a guy that should be able to go that fast at times, but I’m not sure he’ll go to 11 like Dylan is always willing to.
Speaking of 11, Dylan came through the fast mechanics area I was talking about and jumped over the edge of the track and back on it just in time not to take out the entire group. It’s extended from what it was last year and I think it’s just a little bit too long and fast. I know Derek Schuster and the gang are going to keep making the necessary adjustments before the National and I think that is likely the first place to start. Oh, and I don’t think we need to temp kids to hit a rutted-out sand double either. That’s just asking for trouble. My $.02.
#84 Tanner Ward is the rider who went with Seb on his 450. Tanner looked to be workng through some things out there and didn’t end up having the pace to stay with Sebastien. Tanner also raced +25 and he and Dylan Wright had some fun early in the motos, with Dylan looking back at Tanner as if to say, “Let’s go!“
I was very impressed with the continued speed and smoothness of #1 Preston Kilroy who made the trip from Utah to be there. He’s flying back home today. Good time not a long time!
Going right with him was new Honda Canada GDR Fox rider #24 Dylan Rempel. Rempel is ready to go after this title that Preston will be defending this summer.
Kind of lost in the shuffle but going very fast were #25 Cole Pranger on his 250 and #16 Tanner Scott who was on a 350. Neither of them are on pace to battle for podiums, I don’t think, but they are right there in case someone falters. Tanner drops to the 250 class this summer.
I wasn’t there on Saturday because of the whole Cleveland thing, but GDR racer #3 Hannah Cole went 1-1 ahead of #8 Amelie Croteau‘s 2-2 and #7 Brandy McLarty‘s 4-3.
There’s lots more to talk about from the day, but I’ll do that in its own post, so watch for that later. I also shot a ton of race footage, so I’ll edit up some recaps as soon as this we get done this cup of coffee.
You can scour over the full race results HERE.
OK, it’s noon, so I have to end this. I hope that got you through another cup to start your week. It didn’t? Well, this will.
Check out who won again in MXGP!
Have a great week, everyone.
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