Monday Morning Coffee

By Billy Rainford

I’m feeling like a bit of a zombie this morning after getting a late start on the drive home from Sand Del Lee near Ottawa last night. It’s a 7-hour drive to London and I had to sit in front of the shop there at the track to use some wifi to post a few things before hitting the road.

I’m a Rogers cell user and it is not the one to have for this particular track. Hell, it’s not the one to have for the majority of them! I couldn’t send a thing from the track over the weekend. My only option was to head over to the shop between races…hahaha I almost typed that without cracking up. There is NO “between” races on this schedule.

While a particular race is doing interviews on the podium, another is on their sight lap and lining up to go. There just isn’t time for me to post anything up to the site. I was alone at the track this weekend, so there wasn’t anyone else to run over to the shop while I headed to the next race on the line. I’ll have to remedy that for the final rounds.

So, as I sat there with the van running and the A/C blasting, time was slipping away and I knew that meant I was in for a late night on the 401 West. Nothing way too many coffees wouldn’t solve, right?

As I finally drove off the property and headed out, I decided to take Highway 7 but not hit it until the town of Perth. That meant I would drive Highway 10 to Perth and then hook up with the bigger, 2-lane highway there.

As I neared the town I realized I was getting desperately low on gas. I found one just off the road and filled up. I looked at my GPS and it seemed to do a couple circles before I realized I was going the opposite direction on the #7. I went with it for a while, assuming I’d be able to turn right somewhere and realign myself. Nope.

Next thing I knew I was on what has to be the nicest driving in all of Ontario!

Have you ever driven Highway 10 north of Kingston? It’s amazing! There literally wasn’t a straight section longer than 200 metres. The scenery is amazing and the town of Westport is a place I’m going to have to go back to with Emily.

With so many curves, I guess I was lucky there wasn’t any traffic because it would likely be very difficult to get around someone, you know, doing the actual speed limit. I saw a few cars going north but didn’t come up on a single car going my way. It was perfect.

Highway 10 basically takes you from the track right to the 401 at Kingston. If you ever find yourself heading to Ottawa, and you’re starting from west of Kingston, I highly recommend you check this route out. I’ve driven almost every inch of road on this continent and can say that I was very impressed with this 1 1/2 hour stretch. And if you have a street bike! Yep, it’s a must. Just don’t go at dusk because there were deer everywhere.

Anyway, I was also behind all the traffic you’d normally find heading back into Toronto from all directions on a Sunday night, so that was good. I could set the cruise and relax, until I had to deal with the inevitable left-lane idiot driver. What are they teaching people in driver’s education these days??!!

I read a funny tweet earlier and I’ll just totally rip it off, change the action, and use it here:

“I really hope the driver of this car I’m hassling about driving in the left lane doesn’t have a gun, but I’m going to find out the hard way.”

No, I don’t road rage, I just try to let people know they aren’t driving in a manner that is conducive to the smooth flow of traffic on a highway. Ya, that sounds good.

It also makes me wonder what the drivers of these cars think as they motor along. They must just be sitting there in their oblivious lives wondering why everyone else on the highway is such a jerk.

“All these idiots tailgating me and flashing their lights at me! Why is everyone such an idiot?!“

When you think everyone else around you is the problem, there’s a pretty good chance you’re looking in the wrong direction.

I pulled into the driveway at around 2:30am, totally being propped up by caffeine. There was no way I was going to be able to go to sleep. I’m sure many of you reading this right now found yourselves in the very same situation.

I sat on the couch and watched the final 4 days highlights of the Tour de France on YouTube, hit the showers, went to bed, and stared up at the ceiling for a while.

I got a late start this morning but am just now going to start digging into some of the things we saw Sunday at Round 5 of the 2021 Canadian Triple Crown Series MX Nationals. And there’s a lot!

I won’t go into too much detail here, I’ll save that for some other articles and videos.

The two main things were the first Pro/Am race by #212 Sebastien Racine and #26 Ryan Derry filling in for the first time on the SSR TLD Gas Gas team.

How’d they do? Well, Sebastien actually qualified 5th and then went 5-5 for 5th overall! Ryan had his first-ever top 10 overall, so it was a great day for him, too.

There were a lot of things that went on at this round, like #5 Tyler Medaglia having a mechanical (told it was a fuel pump) after running up in 2nd place and looking comfortable, and pre-season 250 title favourite #46 Marco Cannella crashing on lap 13 while running 2nd in moto 2 after winning the first.

Tempers flared in the FXR PreMix class and #241 Sarah-Kim Villeneuve is just a tiny bit off the rear wheel of #1 Eve Brodeur in the Thor WMX class.

There are too many stories like these to add into this column, unless you like to drink coffee at midnight. I did it last night and I don’t recommend it.

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Millville National Highlights

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That will have to do it for this morning. We’ll get lots of stuff up on the site throughout the day, so be sure to check back later.

Have a great week, everyone.