By Billy Rainford
So, I rolled into the house at around 1:00am from another trip down to Florida and another drive in the DMX Van. I keep saying it’s the “last time” I do it in the Dodge Grand Caravan, but I’m just not going to say that anymore. Who knows?! Maybe I drive it until it completely dies and I’m forced to have it towed to a junkyard and buy a new one right then and there. That may just help my decision on whether to go to a bigger Sprinter-style or stay with something similar to what I have now.
I love the thought of having space for a nice desk to work at and an area to stand my bikes, but I worry that I’ll go to fewer races because I’ll be thinking about the increase in fuel cost. We’re having a difficult enough time trying to pick a shade of white… or maybe it’s grey now… for our new kitchen let alone deciding on a new van!
The temperature kept dropping last night as I neared the border between Port Huron, MI and Sarnia, ON. It was down around 4C as I approached the Duty Free. The border guard was cool and I got through without any delay. As I approached the curve in the 402 where I know the speed limit goes up to 110kph, I couldn’t believe that there was suddenly some snow on the ground in the fields beside the highway. How did it know it was Canada?! There was literally no snow on the other side of the St Clair River.
Then, as I turned off the highway and headed in towards London, there was blowing snow across the road and it was like I was in an actual snowstorm! It’s crazy what those little lakes will do to weather.
Anyway, I pulled into the house, got lovingly attacked by our Aussie Doodle, Olive, and then buzzed on the couch for an hour-and-a-half before I was settled down enough to even think about trying to sleep. Emily worked this morning so I tried to be as quiet as I could, but I’m sure the dog’s excitement must have woken her up briefly. Sorry, Em.
I just completed a 2-week stint down south at my good buddy Brendan Goldstein‘s place in Palm Coast, 30 miles north of Daytona.
Like I always say, capturing the content is the easy part, it’s finding time to sit down and do something with it that creates the problem.
Now that I’m home I’ll start sifting through all the content I gathered at the races and at the many practice tracks I stopped in at on my way north.
I went to WW Ranch, then Dreamland, then GPF. I was able to talk with a lot of our Canadian riders who are down south getting ready for our season, so be sure to check back often for many…many updates.
I will say that the highlight of my entire 2 weeks was probably learning that #12 Sebastien Racine set a lap record at Pax Trax in Bunnell, Florida, on a 450. I assume you watched the video we posted from his Money Moto Showdown?
I’ll briefly talk about after the Birmingham Supercross. There will be more later.
As I was running back to the podium after the 450 Main, I thought a nice and easy way to put up some content to Instagram was to simply grab a short video clip of the winner #18 Jett Lawrence taking off his helmet and getting greeted by his mechanic, Christien Ducharme.
I just checked IG and I see that there has been a frenzy of activity over the clip! In fact, it’s now been viewed over 164 000 times. I didn’t see the Monster Girl actually get hit by #2 Cooper Webb and I didn’t listen to the audio of the clip I posted. I turned my head to see her running to the big manager’s tower and read her lips as a medic came to check on her. She said, “Ya, I’m OK” is what it looked like to me, so that’s good.
It wasn’t until I was almost home that I clicked on it to see all the activity and actually listen to the clip. At the time I recorded it, I couldn’t hear anything due to the noise in the stadium, so I had no idea he said, “Cooper smoked her!” Not that anything bad was said, it’s just that I didn’t even know it had happened! You miss a lot of the racing action from the side of the track!
Here’s the clip:
Now that I’ve watched the video of her getting hit, it’s clear she wasn’t hit hard by Cooper, so that’s good. We’ve had tracks where the entire start section is open after the start, so she obviously thought this was the case again there in Birmingham.
Cooper must have thought that since it was Alabama that it would be like NASCAR and she would have kept sliding toward the outside of the corner, so he tried to cut to the inside. Unfortunately, her natural reaction to realizing she was on a hot track was to immediately go back to where she came from, and that’s where Cooper was.
He mostly hit the 30-second board and not the 30-second girl, otherwise she may definitely have been injured in the collision. Good on Cooper for jumping on the brakes so hard.
#16 Tom Vialle is on a run and think it’s time the rest of the field started to worry. He’s now at 2 in a row in 250 East. And remember, Supercross is definitely not his strong suit! It may be a long summer for everyone.
I still need to watch the races on TV. I’ve heard a lot of chatter about things that happened, but since I didn’t see them first-hand or even see replays, I won’t comment here now.
#18 Jett Lawrence is gone. See you later. The kid is rolling now and I don’t know what the rest of the 450 class can do to stop him. Like it or not, we all know what’s coming in the years ahead. You know who’s going to be the one to beat him? Tom.
On to Indy…
Shelby Turner Wins GNCC!
It seems coming back from double ACL surgery was the magic Shelby Turner from Barons, Alberta, needed. She won her first-ever GNCC on the weekend in Washington, Georgia. Congratulations!
| The General Washington, GA – Round 3 |
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| 18. WXC – Bike – Class Results | ||||||
| Place | Nbr | Name | Hometown | Brand | Laps | Elapsed |
| 1 | 550 | SHELBY A TURNER | BARONS, ALBERTA, CANADA | GAS | 3 | 01:30:42.299 |
| 2 | 001 | RACHAEL ARCHER | NEW ZEALAND, // | KAW | 3 | 01:33:30.099 |
| 3 | 444 | KORIE STEEDE | BELOIT, OH | HQV | 3 | 01:35:31.700 |
| 4 | 417 | RACHEL GUTISH | TERRE HAUTE, IN | SHR | 3 | 01:40:00.131 |
| 5 | 198 | BRANDY RICHARDS | LAKE HAVASU CITY, AZ | KTM | 3 | 01:40:26.419 |
| 6 | 777 | JOCELYN BARNES | HONESDALE, PA | HQV | 3 | 01:43:15.618 |
| 7 | 090 | PRESTIN I RAINES | TRAVELERS REST, SC | SHR | 3 | 01:48:05.310 |
| 8 | 437 | JORDAN JARVIS | LEESBURG, FL | YAM | 3 | 02:07:12.819 |
| 9 | 310 | KAYLA ONEILL | GREENWOOD LAKE, NY | YAM | 3 | 02:13:39.810 |
| 10 | 524 | TAYLOR JOHNSTON | BUSKIRK, NY | KTM | 3 | 02:14:05.690 |
Rd 4 – Camp Coker Bullet Moree’s Sportsman’s Preserve Society Hill, SC Mar 23 – Mar 24
Tyler Medaglia Wins Day in the Dirt Down South!
Nobody really knows how this event works, but we do know that Tyler Medaglia was the big winner!
Tegan Kortenbch Takes a Title in Texas
I haven’t had time to go over all the results looking for Canadians at the 2024 James Stewart Spring Championship at Freestone MX, but I do know that #247 Tegan Kortenbach took home a title! Congrats, Tegan.
Full results HERE
OK, I’ve got a full hard drive on my laptop so I’d better get to it and then move it all over to an external so I can avoid all the spinning colour wheels on my screen! Have a great week. Be sure to check our social pages for all kinds of Canadian content rolling out in the next few days before I head to Indy for more Supercross.
I hope that got you through a cup.
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