Monday Morning Coffee

Monday Morning Coffee Opinion Column by Bigwave about Motocross and other interesting topics

By Billy Rainford

Good morning from Cocagne, New Brunswick. I’m back at the Halstead’s house on the water out here on the right coast. If you’ve ever been to the National at River Glade or travelled out to the maritimes you may have gone to Shediac, NB. Well, Cocagne is where you would end up if you went to Captain Dan’s and took a left.

The addition of blackout curtains to the room I stay in means that when I turned off my alarm this morning I slept for another 2 hours! Oops.

Let’s get straight to some River Glade talk.

I was saying in the Race Tech Walk and Talk that it was always something I thought about back in the 1980’s. When we’d head to the races in the middle of summer, there were always a few riders and families missing because they’d headed east to some magical place called Moncton, New Brunswick, where the tides brought people from around the world. I was always mesmerized at the thought of driving east all the way to the Atlantic Ocean to race my dirt bike. And now I’ve been coming out here every year for 20 years straight.

I’m always impressed by the friendliness of the people out here. Sure, they’d probably throw fists if and when they needed to, but they seem to be the quickest of anyone I’ve seen to lend a hand if someone were to ever need it.

It was great to sit and have a beer with the guys from the track on Friday night when I got there. The stories that get told around there are second to none. In fact, I heard one story that I wanted to use as the first in what should be a new series with a title something like “Local Legends” or something like that. Unfortunately, the guy who was going to tell this particular story had to leave early on Sunday, so I wasn’t able to get the inaugural instalment of “Local Legends” this weekend. He did say he may be at Deschambault, so we’ll grab him to spin his yarn then if we see him. It was a great story and it had some effect on how the series is run to this day.

We got rain late Friday and again late Saturday which meant they had some wet conditions to get through both mornings. In hindsight, it may have been a blessing in disguise because the track ended up being great, I thought.

Sure, there were some ruts on a few of the straightaways that made leaning back, twisting the throttle, and hoping for the best the risky method during the races, but I was fine with that because I wasn’t racing!

The spectators came out but the rider entries were a little on the light side. Here’s a look at the entries:

WMX: 14
250 Pro Am: 47
450: 25

As I said, those are not great numbers, but the fans still came out to support the event. I like the Live Laps results for the information you can find after the events on your computer. Here are a couple things I found interesting:

#63 Mars Millar passed more people than anyone else on Sunday. #20 Jeremy McKie was a close 2nd.

24% of the riders on the track were from Ontario.
Only 4.7% were from New Brunswick.
There were more riders all the way from BC on the track than were locals. 6% more.
KTM had 25.6% of the bikes on the track and Yamaha was a close 2nd with 23.3%.
#63 Mars Millar passed more riders than anyone else at 18 (7 moto 1, 11 moto 2).
18-24 age group had twice as many entries as 25-34 in 2nd place.
You can find this information HERE.

They do a great job getting the people involved and having Brett Lee up in the booth a few times during the breaks to to talk about what was happening in the class that was about to hit the track was a nice touch and really helped the fans understand what was going on.

There were lines for every vendor that was there and Earl’s Tavern did a brisk business. It was definitely a success from that standpoint.

Oh, and thank you to Earl for the blue wrist band that meant I could go up in the Toys for Big Boys tower and eat hot dogs and burgers to my heart’s content! I may or may not have had 3 cream sodas, too.

Hannah Cole won the Brian House award as top finishing Atlantic Pro rider.

Let’s have a look at the 3 classes that were on the track on Sunday.

WMX:

1 Jamie Astudillo (1-1) – Jamie isn’t a fan of the sand and was looking forward to River Glade. She looked strong in the rutted clay and took 1-1 motos for the win.
301 Jordan Jarvis (2-2) – Jordan seemed able to catch and pass Jamie but then Jamie showed she could stay with and pressure Jordan.
2 Kaylie Kayer (3-3) – Kaylie always looks and sounds fast but just lost touch with the top 2 riders.
3 Hannah Cole (5-4) – you could tell where Hannah was on the track by the cheers from the crowd. That’s pretty cool for a Canadian event and you don’t see that in most other places.
4 Kiana Kurtz (4-5) – Kiana and Hannah traded moto scores and Kiana was dealing with a few issues that kept her from performing at her best.

250 Pro Am:

Let me start by saying I think Intermediates should be running yellow plates out there. It would make better story lines. Not everyone is up to speed on who’s who out there.

24 Dylan Rempel (2-1) – Dylan should have had 1-1 motos but a little tip over in the last corner took care of that.
73 Crayden Dillon (1-4) – Crayden grabbed both holeshots and took his first ever win in moto 1. He lost touch with the leader in moto 2 but his 4th secured runner-up position.
31 Ryder Malinoski (4-2) – Ryder had a scary moment in the first qualifier when a motor let go on the Klattapult and sent him flying to the ground. 4-2 and holding the red plate should be considered a win, all things considered.
27 Josh Boaz (5-3) – Josh is really coming into his own this season and looks like he’ll be a regular in the top 3 or 4 moving forward.
247 Tegan Kortenbach (3-10) – when you watch the Walk and Talk, you’ll see I keep mentioning a coming changing of the guard and Tegan is one of the riders who will be making this change. He hit the ground in moto 2. #41 Jayden Riley is another but he had some issues that held him back. (W&T will be up as soon as I press GO on this MMC)

450:

151 Harri Kullas (2-1) – if you’re waiting for a mistake from this guy, I wouldn’t hold my breath. His experience shows and he was all over Dylan Wright at the end of moto 1 before taking a comfortable win in moto 2.
9 Dylan Wright (1-2) – Dylan wasn’t happy about something after moto 1 and then hit the ground and left himself too much work to do.
2 Preston Kilroy (3-3) – something may have clicked for Preston as he gave Dylan fits all moto 2.
12 Sebastien Racine (4-4)- Sebastien looks to be the next guy off the podium but that position isn’t fully secured.
14 Quinn Amyotte (6-5) – Quinn traded spots with his teammate #84 Tanner Ward and the 2 of them must be sick of racing this close for 30 plus 2. It was fun to watch though and it looked like a photo shoot out there!