Frid’Eh Update #15 | Jess Pettis | Brought to You by Dirt Care
Week #15 of the DMX Frid’Eh Update belongs to Jess Pettis from Prince George, BC and is brought to you by Dirt Care cleaners and lubricants.
By Billy Rainford
Welcome to week #15 of the DMX Frid’Eh Update brought to you by Dirt Care. I’m supposed to be working on this Update from Nashville, Tennessee, right now. Unfortunately, the price of gas has made me reconsider the 11-hour drive this week. With 2 rounds remaining in the eastern division – Cleveland, OH and then Philadelphia, PA – I made the difficult decision to take a pass on this week’s round and hit the next 2.
I actually flip-flopped right up until pretty late on Thursday afternoon. I left it until there was no possible way I’d make it to Press Day this afternoon. I was almost loading the #DMXDirtCareVan in the dark and heading south on the I-75 once again, but came to my senses and stayed home. But trust me, I’m not happy about it!
While we’re talking about Nashville, here’s a look at the schedule for Saturday. It’s an early one, so pay attention to the times! The times shown are Local/Central time – add 1 hour for Eastern.
Jess Pettis is career #15 in the Canadian Triple Crown Series Motocross Nationals. He’s originally from Prince George, BC but calls the Bromont area of Quebec home these days. I had always heard of this fast youngster from the middle of BC but didn’t actually meet him until we were both in Texas for the Oak Hill GNC back in…hmm, when was that? He was #39 on a Kawasaki 85 and I managed to find him and snag just a couple shots of him while I was there in the MX Ranking motorhome. I guess that would make it 2011?
And yes, the metadata on the photo tells me it was indeed March of 2011 when I met Jess.
Anyway, since then, I’ve gone sledding with him in the mountains of BC, had dinner with his family in Prince George, cycled with him in California, watched him win a couple Canadian titles, watched him race Supercross., and watched him represent Canada at the MXON. Unfortunately, I’ve also seen him get hurt a few times, which is definitely the downside of our sport.
Right now, it looks like he’s the only rider who can match Dylan Wright‘s speed in the 450 class. They’ve definitely had their fare share of run-ins with each other on the track and that’s what’s going to make the 2026 season so much fin to watch.
2025 was an anomaly for the 450 class. Both Jess and Dylan were out of action long enough to take themselves out of the title hunt. Their absence opened the door for eventual winner, and famously retired racer, Phil Nicoletti, who managed to escape Canada with the title after failing to win an overall in the 8-round series. Like I sad – an anomaly.
But check out Jess’ results from the season. Even though he missed 2 rounds he finished 3rd overall:
That first 1 was his number. He was the defending 450 champ in 2025. He had one 2nd and the other 5 that he finished were all 1’s!
He’s been training down in Florida at Club 57 at WW Ranch and he’s now in South Carolina with our old friends at Club MX.
I know there are a few other fast Canadians training there so I was sure to ask him how everyone looked. We’ll have Jess and Dylan back healthy (I hope) in 2026 along with Tanner Ward who finished runner-up in the class last season. The thing we’re all looking forward to seeing is the addition of 250 riders Sebastien Racine and Ryder McNabb in the 450 class. We’ll also have Harri Kullas from Estonia on a Red Bull KTM. We won’t have Phil on the #1 but these new additions will deepen the field and should make things interesting. Preston Masciangelo and Quinn Amyotte will also be right there fighting for top positions. And what about Julien Benek? More on him later.
I got in touch with Jess on Friday afternoon for a podcast interview. Here’s what he had to say:
Find it wherever you get your podcasts. You can also read along with a transcript that is automatically produced on Apple Podcasts. It’ll be full of mistake, like the Quinn Amyotte one was last week, but that makes it kind of fun to try and decipher as you go.
Thanks for the chat, Jess. Good luck with the rest of your preparations. We’ll be sure to follow along with how you do in a couple weekends at Monster Mountain where you’ll race the LLAQ to get a few pre-season gate drops.
Jeremy McKie is Back on the Bike
I kept seeing little video clips of Jeremy McKie on his Instagram page, so I thought I’d give him a call to see what it all means. It turns out, he’s back on the bike and training hard now that his wrist is finally feeling better.
When he crashed during Press Day at the Tampa Supercross last year, he messed up both wrists. His one healed nicely but the other gave him troubles that would end up seeing him requiring almost a full reconstruction, he said.
After a struggle like that, it’s easy to understand that he came close to walking away from racing altogether. However, he headed south to Future MX in Brooksville, Florida, and started riding. Although he wasn’t fit and ready to race, he was enjoying being back on the bike and something clicked. He decided he’d like to give racing one last serious try before walking away and joining “real life.”
He’s been in Florida for about 2 months now and his plan is to take a full run at the 250 class this summer, beginning with the 2 western rounds in Alberta and Manitoba.
Jeremy came up through the amateur ranks as 1 of the top 3 along with Jake Tricco and Jake Piccolo. Still only 22 years old, Jeremy has lots of time to continue towards his goal of a championship, if he so desires.
With the help of Oakley, Matthias Sports, MD Distribution, Plateau energy drink, and DRT gear, Jeremy is looking forward to proving he’s still got the speed to be in the championship conversation. His mechanic will head west in a Sprinter van while Jeremy continues to get himself in the best shape he can before flying to Calgary for Round 1.
I’m looking forward to seeing what this Quebec rider can do this summer. Good luck, Jeremy.
Julien Benek Update
When Julien Benek hurt his thumb at the FIM Arenacross Championship in Toronto back in January, he finished the weekend’s racing. Well, it turns out the thumb was broken and he’s been dealing with it ever since.
Since then, he, of course, cut the cast off and tried to get back to normal activities, but, unfortunately, his thumb had different ideas.
I spoke to him this week and he told me that it’s still broken and that it has kept him away from work and riding. He said he’s “still waiting to get back on the bike again,” so we’ll look forward to seeing him back to 100% soon.
Nashville Supercross
To start the festivities in Nashville, we’ll have the Jeremy McGrath Holeshot King challenge right on Broadway in downtown Nashville at 7pm. I know our old friend (literally met him in 1982…) Al Strickert is lurking in the area and plans to be front row for the action. Let’s see what he can send over from this event. No pressure, Spazz!
As we saw earlier, the program starts much earlier this weekend for Round 13. Here’s how you can watch all the action:
We’ve got some things to talk about over at the Guaranteed Comfort team, but I don’t want to simply put it in the Rumour Mill, so we’ve got a call scheduled with team owner Chris Egan a little later this afternoon and then we can let everyone know what’s going on over there at one of our top HVAC-supported teams.
It looks like I’ve run out of time this week. It looks like the weather has finally made the change toward a proper spring, so I hope you all get the chance to fire up the new or old dirt bike somewhere this weekend and coming week.
As I say that, I scrolled ahead to the forecast for Round 1 of the AMO Ontario series opener at Gopher Dunes next Sunday and it looks like the temperature is only going to climb to around 8C. That’s not great.
Oh, and it’s also showing 10C and rain the day before which is the Cleveland round of Supercross just across Lake Erie from here. Hmm, I’m not liking what I’m seeing. Oh well…
Have a great weekend, everyone, and enjoy the races.
I’m going to let all these people say it this week. After the news that Popkum Motor Park will be closing at the end of this coming 2026 season, I’ve been digging through the archives looking for content from the BC track. “See you at the races…”
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