Monday Morning Coffee

By Billy Rainford

For a lot of riders, today is a pretty big day in the racing season – they’ve made it through Gopher Dunes on Canadian Triple Crown Series race day. I’m sure there are a lot of sore muscles out there this morning, along with some regrets and some things to look back on and be grateful.

Truthfully, we got very lucky this year as far as the weather is concerned. It was probably some of the hottest 4-5 days in a row that I can even remember around here in southwestern Ontario. We had at least 4 days in a row where it was 35 Celsius with extremely high humidity. In fact, it was still pretty brutal when the sun actually broke through the clouds on AMA Amateur Day on Saturday.

But then some rain came through on Saturday night and it washed away most of the humidity, leaving us with really forgiving weather on Sunday for the National.

I remember when the track would end up a sea of rolling whoops that just sapped the strength of even the most physically and mentally fit riders. This year, the bumps were different from that. They were “sharper” as some of the riders I spoke to characterized them as.

I wasn’t about to attempt to ride the track on my Scott Spark this week. I actually did consider it a little earlier in the day, but when push came to shove I was happy to wave the white flag and asked Jeff Ryan if I could use the little Honda CRF110 that was sitting there on its kickstand beside the rig as I wandered by.

In hindsight, I should have turned my head to the right and used the slightly bigger ride that was nearby. The 110 was just too small and the wheels made my lap even more difficult than maybe my pedal bike would have.

I made it around and will have that video up on our Youtube channel after the noon bell tolls for this week’s MMC.

If you’d like to take a break and watch this week’s Race Tech ‘Walk and Talk,’ you can do that here. It ended up being even longer than usual. You can watch the video or fire it up as a podcast while you drive or do some housework.

Here’s a look at the results and then we’ll take a look at my thoughts in point form:

2026 Canadian Triple Crown Series | Round 4 Results and Points from Gopher Dunes

• #301 Jordan Jarvis was an animal in the sand. She’s from Florida and ride it very well. She dominated moto 1 and then went down in turn 1 with #6 Tea Ferguson and had to come from last place. She did just that and made her way to the front with time to spare and sent notice that she’s the one to beat, especially when she didn’t have an AMA WMX race on the same weekend. She extended her points lead and it will be very difficult to change this order.
• #7 Brandy McLarty has more laps on the Gopher Dunes track than the rest of the field. It showed and she was the next fastest rider all day long. 2-2 put her up on the podium in 2nd place.
• #1 Jamie Astudillo is always pretty quick to admit she is not a sand rider. To leave The Dunes with 3 place points is like a win for her. She’s really looking forward to the clay of River Glade this coming weekend.
• #22 Tinley McCoy and her father have wanted to come up to Canada to race for a while now. There’s a strong connection between them and the Thompsons. They were able to make it work this weekend and young Tinley showed that she should be one to watch in the future. She rides the bike like a future champion, that’s for sure. All you had to do was watch her style to see that. She raced a Supermini to victory on Amateur Day and then moved up to the 125 for Sunday and took 4th.
• I thought #2 Kaylie Kayer was going to challenge for this win. Not because she rides sand out west but because she’s just looked fast and racy lately. 4th was all she could come up with, but watch for her to light it up on the upcoming hardpack.

• With 250 #1 Preston Kilroy up to the 450 class and #227 Vincent Wey out with injury, this title is coming down to a 3-horse race, assuming #177 Kade Johnson can get his starts figured out, moving forward.
• In moto 1, #24 Dylan Rempel and #31 Ryder Malinoski crossed the line 1:00 ahead of Johnson in 3rd.
• #73 Crayden Dillon is back and was very impressive, running up near the front and finishing moto 1 in 4th place, just 8 seconds behind Johnson. Unfortunately, he figured he had another 4th place in him for moto 2 until he had an engine let go on him.
• How about #33 Joe Tait taking 4th overall?! A great pair of rides from the tall rider. That extra height can be tough on backs in these conditions.
• Perhaps the biggest question of the day was, “Who is running Julien Benek‘s #17 out there?!” It turns out it was Carson Fields from Michigan and he ran it very well. Benek hasn’t entered a race yet in 2026, so they allowed him to keep the number. Carson actually clocked the 3rd fastest lap time of the first moto behind Malinoski and Rempel. I don’t know what his plans are for the rest of the summer, but hopefully we see more of him up here.
• #41 Jayden Riley, #247 Tegan Kortenbach, and #27 Josh Boaz all tied with 24 points on the day for 7th, 8th, and 9th.

• #9 Dylan Wright‘s 7-moto streak came to an end in moto 2. In fairness, it looked like it should have ended at 6! His bike started smoking on lap 2 of moto 1 and you had to think it was going to let go at some point, but he was able to get it home and ahead of his main rival, #151 Harri Kullas. In moto 2, he had to make a charge after a poor start and then ended up on the ground. He regrouped and clawed his way back to the front but then his bike expired before he could get across the line. He lapped so far up the field that he was still scored a 12th in moto 2.
• Kullas was the overall winner with 2-1 motos but was docked 3 championship points for what was deemed a red cross flag violation. As I was doing my interviews, Harri left the grounds so I wasn’t able to speak to him about it. Harri still took the overall and is 2nd in points to Dylan.
• #2 Kilroy was bumped up to 2nd overall (4-2) and rode his Yamaha in the sand like he was on a trail ride! Well, that’s what it sounded like to me, at least. He short-shifted and probably had 3/4 of a tank of gas left at the end of the motos!
• #12 Sebastien Racine has shown that he is on the level of 3rd place in this group. He’s got some work to do to stay with Wright and Kullas, but he should be in the fight for 3rd with Kilroy from here on out.
• #84 Tanner Ward wasn’t happy with his 4th place result. He had 3rd place pace but hit the ground. His fight with Racine (who also fell) and teammate #14 Quinn Amyotte in moto 2 was fun to watch, even though Tanner didn’t enjoy it.
• #377 Daniel Elmore was a little sorer than he was hoping to be this week after that spectacular crash at Ste Julie. It’s his wrist that is giving him a bit of trouble and 7th was a good finish compared to what it could have been.

We now head to River Glade near Moncton, New Brunswick, for Round 5 of the series. We’ll than head west to Ottawa for Sand Del Lee and then to Deschambault in Quebec for the ECAN and the National.

OK, the clock is about to strike noon and I need to get to work on the Highlights video fro mthe weekend. Have a great week, everyone, and I’ll see you out in the maritimes for some lobster!