Frid’Eh Update #12 | Sebastien Racine | Brought to You by RP Race Performance
By Billy Rainford
Welcome to Week #12 of the DMX Frid’Eh Update brought to you by RP Race Performance. We got lulled into a false sense of spring here in Southwestern Ontario a couple weeks ago with summer-like weather. Unfortunately, we got some weird lake effect snow the past couple days and you can just barely see the grass poking through the top of this new layer of snow. Tracks in the area were open for riding but will have to wait until next week when we’ head to ‘re promised better weather again.
When I was down south for Daytona and Birmingham, I’d talk to Emily on the phone and she’d be lying in the sun in the backyard! It’s amazing how quickly things can change in Canada.
Anyway, it’s not like we’ve got a base layer of snow with snowbanks or anything. This is just a thin layer of snow that’s enough to piss you off and keep you off the bike, motorized or otherwise.
It was great to be at the last 3 Supercross races, but I won’t be making the trip out to Seattle for Round 11. We’ll have Jessica Longname from Tree Three Media picking up the 250 West round again for us, so be sure to keep checking in for her coverage.
We saw a lot of MX101 Yamaha rider Sebastien Racine from Casselman, Ontario, when I was down in Florida for SX, and it’s his week for the Update Interview this week. One thing I learned when I was there is that he is a very good 450 rider at 18. As I’ve mentioned a few times, he’s credited with turning the fastest lap ever done at Pax Trax in Bunnell, so that says a lot about his big bike abilities.
His 2023 numbers don’t reflect his speed, and he’ll be the first to admit he got a little too “in his own head” last season as he became the team’s expected top 250 rider. He touches on that in our interview and it’s something he feels he’s corrected heading into 2024.
Here’s a look at his Canadian results:
250 MX:
250 AX:
250 Triple Crown:
Here’s video of Sebastien nearly winning the $$$ at the inaugural Money Moto Showdown at Pax:
He wants to get a bunch more gate drops before the season starts out west and we should see him at a few races in Ontario and/or Quebec in the next couple months. Here’s what he had to say when we contacted him this week:
Direct Motocross: Alright, it’s week #12 for the Direct Motocross Friday update brought to you by RP Race Performance. That means we’re going to talk to Sebastian Racine again. It seems like we’re seeing a lot of you lately, Sebastian. Thanks for chatting with us.
Sebastien Racine: Oh yeah, you’re welcome.
Alright, now, a couple things. I mean, we did talk to you pretty recently about a bunch of stuff. I like to bring up the fact that you set a lap record at PAX, but we won’t go into that anymore. I’m kind of beating that one to death, aren’t I? Ha. But, since I saw you, you went up to Budds Creek for a Loretta Lynn’s area race, right? Can you take us through how that went.
Yeah. I mean, we were coming back home and decided to kind of like, why not stop and, and race? So, um, yeah, it, it didn’t go the best, but it didn’t go too bad. I always struggle in ruts since I’m young and that track is really rutty and has a bunch of hills, so it’s kind of a learning curve for sure.
I haven’t rode there since, I think, 2018 or 19, so it just took me a while to get going and just took a while to get a flow going. I went 1-1 in 250 Pro Sport and then 2-2 in College Boy and 3-3 in Open Pro Sport. So, it wasn’t too bad, but, uh, still got a little bit of work to do.
Okay, now I saw the actual results, so I kind of knew how you did, but who was ahead of you in those other two classes?
Um, it was, uh, I forgot his name. I think it’s Jacob Glenn or something, something like that. And, in Open there was Hayden Dickens, which is, I’ve always raced with him since I was a kid, so he’s a good guy.
All right. Now, would you actually go to Loretta’s or did you just do this for a race?
I have no idea. I was just doing this one for a race and just to do gate drops. Because last year, I wasn’t ready at round one, just cause I hadn’t done any gate drops. So just kind of racing everywhere. That’s why I did the PAX race. I did the Sunshine State MX race, did this one, and I’ll do a couple more Area Qualifiers and stuff, just local races just to get gate drops down and then when a Regional comes, I’ll see if I do them or if we decide to not do them. We’ll see.
Okay, what’s your Loretta Lynn’s history?
I only went once, really, um, in 20 I mean, I was in 2013. I qualified second at the Regional in 50 (4-6), and ended up breaking my femur a week before, so that kind of sucked.
And then in 2017, I ended up going but I crashed every moto. The track was gnarly, and ended up, I think, 14th overall, so, wasn’t too good. And then I tried to qualify again in 2019. I qualified in three classes and we decided to just go to Deschambault just because of my sponsors at the time, so, did that. But, I would like to go again, for sure, just like, never really raced good there. I’ve done pretty good at Mini O’s before, but never at Loretta Lynn’s.
All right, you never hear of, um, you know, late 20s pro riders going and racing the pro classes, but how old are you? You’re still young enough to kind of be a kid going to it, right? How old are you now?
Yeah, exactly. I just turned 18. So, I don’t think I’m too old to race pro sport there.
No, no for sure. Okay, now talking about training, I know after Budds Creek you went back home to Casselman, Ontario, right? That’s where you are now?
Yeah, exactly. We did Budds and then, uh, the plan was just to reset insurance and head back out on Saturday and go to JWTF, but it’s supposed to rain there all week, so… We’ll figure something out, maybe go ride, go to some private tracks, but for now, I’m stuck at home.
Okay. Now, I was mentioning you spent some time there at Dreamland there with Kody Renzland and I spoke to Quinn Amyotte when I was at GPF, and he mentioned a lot of technique stuff they were working on. Is there something that you picked up on this off season that you’re hoping to do? Anything different that Kody was working on with you, or what did you do?
I mean, it’s a lot of sand there, so I think, especially kinda Quinn, he’s a hard-pack guy, so for him it’s a lot of stuff he needs to learn in sand, but for me it’s kind of the full opposite way around, I’m good in sand, but it’s hard in a hard-pack, so it’s like, he teaches some stuff in the sand, but I mostly know those, and then hard-pack is where like Quinn and all those guys know everything, but I’m kind of just a fish out of water. So it was good to teach me a couple of things that are going to be helpful for sure. And just a couple basic tricks and stuff like that.
Were you doing a lot of it on the 450 or are you just on the 250?
I did mostly 450 because it used to rain pretty much every weekend so the track was super soft. So I would ride the 450 pretty much, like we wouldn’t ride Mondays usually just cause it was so soft. And then I used to ride Tuesday and Wednesday on the 450 and then I would maybe do like Thursday, Friday or Thursday only on the 250. But now I think I’ll start riding the 250 a bit more.
Have you guys done your team testing all together? You don’t have a teammate yet, I guess. But what’s the plan for like a team photo shoot and all that stuff?
We usually do that at Sand Del Lee, and testing and stuff, we still haven’t really done that, we had a pretty good base last year, we went through a lot of stuff in Cali, so I’m really happy with the bike already setup-wise, we just like, a couple triple clamp stuff we’ll try, bar mount, like just basic kind of stuff, and then suspension is pretty much like we already have it down. The motor stuff, all that, Allan‘s (Brown) gonna bring some motors down and we’ll just give it a try down here instead of spending the money to go to Cali.
That makes sense, makes sense. And how’s your cycling going? I saw a couple bicycles there in your trailer. Did you get out riding a bunch?
Uh, not really. Honestly, I, uh, I did a couple road bike rides, but nothing crazy. I mean, there’s not really any trails around there, so a little bit of gravel bike or road biking and never really went mountain biking or anything like that.
So, the 250 class kind of weird, right? We got a lot of guys moving up. We’ve got a Tyler Medaglia coming down. How’s it looking to you? I mean, you’re going to be an 18 year old up against the old guys, Kaven Benoit and Tyler Medaglia up there at the front.
Yeah, for sure. I think it’s gonna be good. We lost three guys from last year. We lost (Mitchell) Harrison, (Ryder) McNabb, and (Josiah) Natzke. So, it’s gonna be different for sure.
And Jake Piccolo, too.
Yeah, and Piccolo. A couple guys are heading out, but I think a lot of like, maybe like Wyatt Kerr, TJ (Tanner Scott), like, a lot of those people will be coming up too, so, I’m riding good too this year, so, it should, it should be good. I just need to get out of my head on race day, and just ride good, and I’m sure I’ll be up there.
Right, okay, let’s ask you some silly questions, like I said, we’ve been talking a lot lately, because, obviously, seeing you down south when I was down there too, but, um, okay, let’s say this, you win your first-ever Supercross, what’s your finish line trick?
Oh boy, uh, I don’t even know, honestly.
One-hander?
Yeah, probably a one-hander. I would just be hyped, honestly.
Also, I know your dad was whipping together your moto van there for you. How did that end up? Have you been on your own and taken it somewhere and slept in it yet, or no?
No. When we were in Florida, we did the kind of separation in the bed. We did like kind of the garage part. It’s pretty much all done. So yesterday, we kind of finished it up back home. I ordered some stuff that was cheaper in Canada, so we just pretty much got a mattress and stuff, solar panels, inverters, that kind of stuff.
I still gotta put the inverter in today, but, it’s pretty much all done. Today it’ll be done for sure, and on my YouTube, I’m gonna do a moto van video, so you’ll see pretty much from start to the finish.
Okay, when are you gonna do that? Once you have it finalized, obviously?
Probably if I’m done today, I’ll probably do it tomorrow, so it should be up tomorrow or Saturday.
What do you listen to when you’re on these long road trips? Are you a podcast guy, music guy, what do you do?
Uh, yeah. I mean, I’ve never listened to podcasts ever before. On my way down from Florida back home, I listened to Pulp and the CMXU guys with Ryan Gauld and stuff. So it’s pretty cool. At least it keeps you kind of in the action when you’re driving and you’re not falling asleep trying to sing a song. So it’s better than listening to music.
Speaking of music, what’s the second worst kind of music behind country?
Oh, country is the best, 100 percent, but the worst one… I don’t know, I really don’t know.
Sorry, that was a loaded question. I just like taking digs at country music. Okay, how about this one, when you wake up in the morning, you go on your phone, Instagram, where do you go, stories, posts, reels, how do you get your information in the morning?
I scroll a bit and then go check reels, a lot of funny stuff and moto stuff, so I just kind of check the reels and then check a bit of TikTok, a bit of YouTube and that’s pretty much it.
Okay, I’m asking that because I need to know what I have to work on more! Let’s say you’re making dinner for yourself, what do you make? What’s your go-to meal?
Probably spaghetti with chicken. That’s pretty much when my parents went on vacation during Christmas I made a big batch of that and pretty much did that all week. I love pasta and stuff, so. That and maybe just chicken, rice, and green beans. That’s pretty easy for lunch.
I know you said you’re going to maybe come down and ride Gopher Dunes, but what races will you do before the season starts?
I might, I might come down and race the first AMO. I’m still not sure, depends on the weather and stuff, but, I might go hit that up and probably if the Quebec series starts. I didn’t check the schedule. If it starts pretty soon, I might do a couple there, a couple in the New York state. I know there’s a few races there, so probably just a bit everywhere. If there’s a race and I have nothing to do, I’ll go race it. Pretty much I’ll be there.
Okay, now I’ll put you on the spot, do you know who your 450 teammate is yet? Or is it you?!
I have no idea. I went to the shop yesterday to talk to Kev (Kevin Tyler) and stuff. No idea. I don’t know yet. We don’t know yet. Names have been thrown around, but I still don’t know more than that.
Alright, you’ve gotta go set up your moto van, inverter and everything. That’s pretty cool. You’re getting solar power, right? How many panels up there? How much you got up on the roof?
We got two panels. I couldn’t tell you how much watts or whatever, but I know our battery is a thousand watts. We have a 3000 watt inverter, so fridge is going to be hooked up to that, and I know this fridge, we had another inverter that was a bit too small, but it was working perfectly fine, so we’ll be able to run the fridge. I don’t know about a microwave and stuff. We’ll have to check that.
But I’ll bring a generator anyways. I have a plug outside so I’ll just plug it in to a generator. And when I’m somewhere, at least everything’s gonna work. But, yeah, solar panels, the plan was just for the fridge, really, so food doesn’t go bad and stuff when we’re on the road.
And obviously you can tell I’m asking you this because I’m looking for a new van.
We had the van for two years now and I’ve been trying to figure out what I wanted to do. I had kind of a different plan than my dad did, but I think it turned out pretty good. We have a bed up top, we can put a bed on the bench at the bottom, so we can sleep two people.
And then, I was gonna buy a big cabinet to put, like, microwave and stuff, but we ended up buying a toolbox that I just have used as a cabinet to put my stuff in. And then, under the bench, we have, kind of, three legs, so we can put pretty big baskets, and we can put clothes, and just extra storage in there.
Can you lie sideways in yours?
So my bed is only like 39 inches wide, so it’s like a twin bed, but it’s only, I think, 66 inches long. So I can’t sleep straight, but if I go sideways in the bed, I can, I fit straight. I always sleep in a ball anyway, so it doesn’t really matter.
All right, Sebastian, I appreciate you getting caught up with us again. Like I said, we talked to you recently down south at the races so it’s cool you’re getting all these gate drops, and if you’re going to Gopher Dunes I’m sure I will see you there. Do you want to thank the team before we let you go?
Oh yeah, sure. I’d like to thank the whole MX 101 FXR Yamaha Canada race team. Kevin is one of the best guys out there. They’re just always ready to help me out and stuff. Just everybody else that helps us out, FMF, Decal Works, Ride Engineering, Factory Ride goggles… I’m missing a bunch, but just everybody that helps us. Thanks a lot. It means so much.
Shelby Turner Sitting 4th in GNCC Racing Series
Shelby Turner from Barons, Alberta, got her first win in the GNCC Racing Series in Washington, Georgia, last week at round 3. She put herself in contention and is now only 9 points from the leader.
| WXC – Bike – Class Points | RND 1 | RND 1 | RND 2 | RND 3 | ||||
| Place | Make | Nbr | Name | Finish | Finish | Finish | Finish | Total Points |
| 1 | KAW | 001 | RACHAEL ARCHER | 1 | 4 | 2 | 73 | |
| 2 | HQV | 444 | KORIE STEEDE | 2 | 2 | 3 | 71 | |
| 3 | KTM | 198 | BRANDY RICHARDS | 3 | 1 | 5 | 67 | |
| 4 | GAS | 550 | SHELBY A TURNER | 4 | 5 | 1 | 64 | |
| 5 | SHR | 417 | RACHEL GUTISH | 5 | 3 | 4 | 55 | |
| 6 | HQV | 777 | JOCELYN BARNES | 6 | 6 | 6 | 45 | |
| 7 | HQV | 879 | KAITLYN LINDSEY | 8 | 8 | 12 | 35 | |
| 8 | KTM | 924 | ADDISON J ELLIOTT | 10 | 9 | 11 | 33 | |
| 9 | KTM | 482 | CARLY LEE | 9 | 10 | 13 | 31 | |
| 10 | YAM | 437 | JORDAN JARVIS | 11 | 14 | 8 | 30 |
Next Round: Camp Coker Bullet, Society Hill, South Carolina – March 23rd
And I forgot to post a couple things from Round 2 at Hog Waller in Palatka, Florida, so here they are now:
We’ve got a busy weekend coming up with Jessica in Seattle and Kate Kowalchuk over in Spain for Round 2 of the 2024 MXGP World Championships.
Kate’s weekend started out pretty rough after she got shut down at an airport café at 3:00am and then had to walk about 3km because the shuttle service didn’t start for a few hours. It can only go up from here, Kate!
Have a great weekend, everyone. Wake me up when this snowstorm ends…
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