By Billy Rainford
Dominating the news this morning is the return to Honda Canada GDR Fox Racing for #5 Tyler Medaglia. Tyler rode for the team back in 2012 as the defending 250 champion on the #11 Honda 450 back then. Tyler won the 250 title in 2010 and 2011 for the Blackfoot team and then moved up to the 450 class. In 2024, he’ll drop back down to the 250 class in an attempt to win an unprecedented 3rd title in the class.
Tyler raced the final round of the 2022 season at Walton Raceway in the 250 class in an attempt to help his teammate Mitchell Harrison. However, the two riders ended up going head-to-head with Tyler leading the race until what Tyler called a mechanical caused an ugly crash and took him out.
He was leading the race and was the fastest qualifier, so his dropping down to the 250 class this coming season will definitely have an immediate affect on the field. With 2023 champion Ryder McNabb heading south and Josiah Natzke moving up to the 450 class for the Red Bull KTM Canada team, the “youngster” class should come down to a battle between Medaglia, Kaven Benoit, and Harrison.
Tyler will join the team’s other 250 rider, Jake Piccolo, who had that crash in the first turn of the first moto in Edmonton last season. Jake came back later in the season, but still needs surgery on the shoulder and we’re told he won’t be ready when the series starts at Wild Rose in Calgary next spring.
You heard me. We’re being told we won’t be returning to the hybrid track at RAD Torque Raceway for the first round next season.
We had an interview with Tyler ready to go when the announcement went out officially this morning:
The inside joke question at the end of the interview about driving the panel van west comes from 2012 when I did drive the Chevy Savannah panel van out west for the team. It was one of those trips where things happened one after another to make it a most memorable trip across the country.
My trip started with Derek Schuster underneath the van in the snow making some final “adjustments” before I pointed the van west.
I made it as far as Bracebridge when I had to hit a Canadian Tire for some repairs.
My next stop was somewhere between Blind River and SS Marie when the van quit on me. I was right near a small motel with a restaurant so I walked in and called Derek. While he sorted out our next move, I sat and took in all of the strangeness that was going on around me.
The owners were a middle-aged couple. The guy kept himself busy watching reruns of 3rd Rock from the Sun on the tiny TV in the corner, laughing his head off.
Once it was determined that I wasn’t going anywhere until the following day, they told me they had a “special room ready” for me.
It was the kind of place that I was sure they had something set up to either watch me or kill me. As I walked to the room with my key, the wife stood outside the door to the unit they lived in wearing nothing but a very sheer nightgown. I was creeped out.
We then put a scheme together where I’d have to pretend I was Kerri Schuster’s husband and we’d had a fight. This ruse was in order for me to be able to use the CAA card to be towed into SS Marie to get the van fixed.
There’s no way the tow truck driver believed me when I said she was waiting in SS Marie after our fight, but he didn’t seem to care, as long as he got paid.
I packed up and got the hell out of the room and rode shotgun with him for the 40-minute drive.
I remember they fixed the van but then left the engine cover off and I was expected to drive away that way. I went back into the shop and told them what they’d left me with. They said they only put it back the way they found it. We worked it out and I went back in the bay and they put it back together before I left.
My memory is getting a little blurry after all these years, but I remember being stopped again somewhere with some troubles but actually making it in time to transfer all the contents of the van into the RV and full-size trailer at the BC Ferries terminal in Tsawwassen, leaving me with just my luggage and the first Scott Addict road bike I got from Mica Sport Canada. The van was so packed that we had barely enough room to place the bicycle on top of the pile.
I had the entire team’s racing dreams on my shoulders as I limped this old van across the country. I was very relieved when I pulled into the parking lot of the ferry terminal and made the handoff, I remember that!
So that’s why I asked if I had to drive a panel van across the country again at the end of our interview.
I have photos from the trip across Canada that year but I’m still out in Kamloops and didn’t bring the external hard drive that has all of them on it. I even took photos of the little TV with 3rd Rock playing. And I bet if I took a close look at the photo of the room they had “ready” for me, I’d find a hidden camera. It may not have come across in my storytelling just how creepy it really was.
Tyler Gibbs finished 8-9 9th Friday and 8-8 8th Saturday in Lebanon, Missouri, and sits 9th in points in the GT Arena Motocross Series.
The series takes a break now until the New Year when it will start back up in Lincoln, Nebraska, on January 5-6.
Saturday:
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Overall
Sunday:
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Jorge Prado racing the first 3 rounds of Supercross. I don’t know what’s going to happen after turn 1, but you know he’s going to get there first!
These sleepless nights with my mom on “patrol” the whole time are really starting to take their toll. It must be awful to go to sleep and think you’re waking up in a strange place every time. If you’ve ever lived with someone with dementia, they tend to walk around and talk all night as they get into anything that looks out of place. This morning, the one sofa was pulled out from the wall and there was a carrot in a glass on the mantle.
Of course, now she’s sound asleep in her chair in the corner…
Have a good week, everyone.
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