Photo Report | 2026 AMO OPC Round 1 – Gopher Dunes

By Billy Rainford

Tim Lee was ready with the big AMO 30-second board.

It was Round 1 of the 2026 AMO Ontario Provincial Championships (OPC) at Gopher Dunes in Courtland, Ontario, this past weekend. With racing both Saturday and Sunday, I was unable to see the action on Day 1, since I was at the Monster Energy AMA Supercross at Huntington Bank Field in Cleveland, Ohio. Because of that, I missed a few class winners. Another reason is that I was also shooting video for some of the classes that I will get up on our YouTube channel as soon as I can get to them.

Derek Schuster and the Gopher Dunes crew have been busy reworking the track layout. It looks a little bit more like it used to and I think fans will enjoy the fact that they can see the entire track from the grass bank like before.

I will say that I think the mechanics straight it too long and because of that the speeds are a little too high in that area. I’m also not a huge fan of double jumps on this track with the way the faces get rutted up on race days. I think it’s a little too tempting for younger riders to try it with the risk. I know they are going to continue tweaking the layout before we get to Round 4 of the 2026 Canadian Triple Crown Series Motocross Nationals on July 5th.

The temperature dropped from 20C on Saturday to around 4C on Sunday with a period in the afternoon where you could barely see due to a blizzard that rolled through. It cleared out for the final 3 motos, but at that time if you were finished your races you weren’t staying until the end. Because of that, and the very gusty winds, I didn’t get interviews with riders like I normally would.

Here’s a look at the winners of most of the classes:

We’ll start off with the youngest class I got, 50 (7-8) and 50 GP (4-8). #510 Ryder Baribeau took both wins in 7-8 and then split moto wins with #818 Kolton Love.
#818 Kolton Love finished 1-2 in 50 GP (4-8), just missing top spot.

#300 Ellerie Yandt won the Girls (4-8) class.

#609 Victoria Dillon won Girls (9-16).

65 (7-9) went to #98 Jason Kukielka 1-1.
65 (10-11) and Open was all #123 JR Gionette with 1-1 motos. The Open B class went to #213 Deegan Giguere.
#99 Austin Kukielka went 1-1 in 85 (7-11).
#77 Lane Bowes took the older (9-16) 85 class 2-1 after #9 Chandler Power was a DNS in moto 2.

Supermini went to #32 Ethan Stys with 2-1 motos.

#217 Trent Mulder took Schoolboy 1 with 1-3 motos.
Schoolboy 2 went to #111 Gavin Forsbrey 3-1.
#212 Niko Holmes was a perfect 1-1 in the Youth 14-24 class.
#3 Hannah Cole won the Ladies A 12+ with 1-1 motos.
The 2-Stroke class was won by Kaes Knights 1-1.
#83 Sully Watson was perfect in both Junior classes with 1’s across the board.
250 Intermediate was won by #226 Jonathan Bergeron1-1.
#111 Gavin Forsbrey also won the Open Intermediate class 2-1.
It was great to see the familiar #218 of Nathan Bles back at the track. He won 30+ 1-1.
#258 Ken Clark look like he was ready to try and qualify for a National! He won 40+ and 50+ without a hiccup.
#9 Dylan Wright won 25+ and the Pro Am. Yes, it was 1’s across the board for him. I’ll do a separate column to talk about what we learned in the Pro Am class on Tuesday.

You can look over the full results HERE.

Brad “Steven” Nemeth was busy being this guy and then said, “See you at the races...”