Monday Morning Coffee

It’s time for another Monday Morning Coffee opinion column where we talk about what happened in Motocross on the weekend and usually more…

By Billy Rainford

Wow, what can you say about the racing at Round 2 of the SMX World Championship Playoffs in Texas?! The temperature went up over 38C/100F and ended up riding like a dried-up outdoor track – slick and full of surprises. They talk about it every weekend, of course, but that cannot be easy conditions to get your bike set up comfortable to race on.

Sure, back in the day, if anyone asked me what I had my suspension set for, I’d answer, “Well, what do bikes come like stock?” Sadly, we were never into “testing” to get my bikes set up properly, but these guys aren’t going for Intermediate wins at Hully Gully! It was said that most start with a Supercross setting and soften it up according to how the track feels and develops.

250SMX OVERALL RESULTS

POS	#	BIKE	RIDER	MOTO 1	MOTO 2	TOTAL POINTS
1	1		HAIDEN DEEGAN	1	1	2
2	16		TOM VIALLE	3	2	5
3	30		JO SHIMODA	2	3	5
4	47		LEVI KITCHEN	7	4	11
5	929		JULIEN BEAUMER	5	6	11
6	31		JORDON SMITH	4	9	13
7	39		PIERCE BROWN	9	5	14
8	63		CAMERON MCADOO	8	7	15
9	511		NICHOLAS ROMANO	13	8	21
10	37		MAX ANSTIE	11	10	21
11	29		TY MASTERPOOL	10	12	22
12	26		GARRETT MARCHBANKS	12	14	26
13	34		RYDER DIFRANCESCO	17	11	28
14	69		COTY SCHOCK	15	13	28
15	24		R.J. HAMPSHIRE	6	22	28
16	473		LUX TURNER	14	16	30
17	35		TALON HAWKINS	16	18	34
18	65		HENRY MILLER	21	15	36
19	99		JETT REYNOLDS	20	17	37
20	162		MAX SANFORD	18	20	38
21	71		COLE THOMPSON	19	21	40
22	245		MATTI JORGENSEN	23	19	42
23	57		NATE THRASHSER	22	23	45

250 Points

1. 1 Haiden Deegan 100
2. 16 Tom Vialle 81
3. 47 Levi Kitchen 78
4. 30 Jo Shimoda 76
5. 929 Julien Beaumer 69
6. 31 Jordon Smith 64
7. 39 Pierce Brown 56
8. 37 Max Anstie 49
9. 29 Ty Masterpool 43
10. 63 Cameron McAdoo 42
11. 511 Nick Romano 40
12. 34 Ryder DiFrancesco 39
13. 24 RJ Hampshire 36
14. 26 Garrett Marchbanks 35
15. 69 Coty Schock 30
16. 48 Chance Hymas 23
17. 473 Lux Turner 15
18. 33 Jalek Swoll 14
19. 35 Talon Hawkins 12
20. 99 Jett Reynolds 10
21. Henry Miller 8
22. 59 Daxton Bennick 8
23. 41 Carson Mumford 5
24. Joey Savatgy 5
25. 142 Max Sanford 4
26. Casey Cochran 4
27. 57 Nate Thrasher 3
28. 71 Cole Thompson 2
29. 245 Matti Jorgensen 0
30. 105 Mark Fineis 0

Love him or not, the future of American Motocross is Haiden Deegan. We are right now seeing what the next 10 years are going to look like, and he’s still in the 250 class! It doesn’t matter, he’s doing things on the motorcycle that others simply aren’t. He’s seeing things on the track that others just aren’t seeing.

I always remember watching James Stewart during practice and qualifying. He would be eying up obstacles and rhythm sections that nobody else was even thinking about. I also remember watching Malcolm Stewart when he was still an amateur at Lake Whitney and he was the same way. Sometimes, riders come along that are just seeing and doing things differently, and Haiden can put his name on that list.

While there was a ton of action going on for positions in the 250 class, only Tom Vialle got a sniff of Deegan in that second moto. Not that is took a ton of insight, but I called Deegan and Vialle the ones to watch this season and it definitely played out that way.

It was good to see Jo Shimoda up in the mix again. He’s be “the next one” for some time now but the stars haven’t aligned for him just yet. He’s easily the nicest guy on the line, so it was good to see him up to speed at Round 2.

Cole Thompson was 19th fastest in qualifying and made it in through the LCQ. He said on his Instagram that his bike shut off on him in both motos. He ended up finishing 21st overall (19-21) and scored a couple points. Here’s what he said on his page:

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Cole Thompson (@colethompson16)

450SMX OVERALL RESULTS

POS	#	BIKE	RIDER	MOTO 1	MOTO 2	TOTAL POINTS
1	96		HUNTER LAWRENCE	1	3	4
2	4		CHASE SEXTON	4	1	5
3	1		JETT LAWRENCE	3	2	5
4	3		ELI TOMAC	2	5	7
5	2		COOPER WEBB	5	4	9
6	94		KEN ROCZEN	6	6	12
7	7		AARON PLESSINGER	9	7	16
8	21		JASON ANDERSON	8	8	16
9	14		DYLAN FERRANDIS	7	9	16
10	45		COLT NICHOLS	13	10	23
11	15		DEAN WILSON	14	11	25
12	51		JUSTIN BARCIA	12	13	25
13	27		MALCOLM STEWART	11	17	28
14	28		CHRISTIAN CRAIG	10	18	28
15	12		SHANE MCELRATH	15	14	29
16	11		KYLE CHISHOLM	18	12	30
17	79		HARRI KULLAS	17	16	33
18	75		MARSHAL WELTIN	22	15	37
19	23		GRANT HARLAN	16	22	38
20	22		FREDDIE NOREN	20	19	39
21	36		PHILLIP NICOLETTI	19	21	40
22	70		JERRY ROBIN	23	20	43
23	32		JUSTIN COOPER	21	23	44

Hunter Lawrence grabbed his first 450 win in this field. I know we’ve still got the final round to go in Las Vegas next week (where points are tripled!) but in my mind I’m already starting to mentally drift across the pond and think about the MXON over in England. Hunter and Jett Lawrence are both on Team Australia. Ouch.

Chase Sexton showed everyone what he’s capable of in that second moto. He was on cruise control out front and took the win with Jett in 2nd place and closing.

Eli Tomac wasn’t able to move forward as much in the 2nd moto but was 2-5 for 4th. Imagine a Team USA with Chase, Eli, and Haiden. That is a team that should be able to run with the top European teams. Again, my mind has already headed overseas…

You would have thought that those conditions would have favoured someone like Jason Anderson, but he was only able to muster a 8-8 for 8th.

Phil Nicoletti only has one round left in his pro career. He went down off the start with Malcolm Stewart in moto 2 and 19-21 for 20th. Let’s see what the Club MX rider can do at his final race.

450 Points

1. 96 Hunter Lawrence 90
2. 4 Chase Sexton 89
3. 1 Jett Lawrence 81
4. 3 Eli Tomac 69
5. 7 Aaron Plessinger 62
6. 94 Ken Roczen 58
7. 2 Cooper Webb 58
8. 14 Dylan Ferrandis 51
9. 27 Malcolm Stewart 48
10. 21 Jason Anderson 48
11. 45 Colt Nichols 37
12. 28 Christian Craig 34
13. 32 Justin Cooper 33
14. 51 Justin Barcia 33
15. 12 Shane McElrath 31
16. 15 Dean Wilson 24
17. 75 Marshal Weltin 22
18. 22 Freddie Noren 18
19. Harri Kullas 18
20. 23 Grant Harlan 15

Points will be tripled in the final round, so as they kept saying in the broadcast, this one is “winner take all!”

FMSQ Enduro

We had a bunch of our MX guys racing in Quebec this past weekend in the FMSX Enduro at Chainéland.

Expert Results

1. Tyler Medaglia 161m 23s
2. Alexandre Gougeon 162m 19s
3. Loic Leonard 162m 20s
4. Killian Irigoyen 167m 34s
5. Philippe Chainé 169m 24s
6. Kaven Benoit 170m 15s
7. Mel Mazaudier 172m 30s
8. David Bergeron 173m 19s
9. Owen McKill 173m 33s
10. Zach Sarrazin 173m 57s

Expert Women

1. Véronique Pellerin-Chainé 102m 51s
2. Emma Sharpless 110m 40s
3. Catherine Desrochers 110m 46s
4. Maude Filiatrault 91m 40s
5. Eve Willard 92m 42s
6. Marie-Eve Langlois 96m 52s
7. Mélissa Meilleur 97m 26s
8. Rachel Sheney 97m 47s
9. Marika Hamel 98m 25s
10. Juliette Libersan 104m 48s

You can look at the full results HERE.

Dylan Wright lined up and was looking good until he got a rear flat and had to pull in. He went back out and was ripping but then got a front flat that did him in of the day. He’s listed as 24th in Expert but that doesn’t tell the story.

This race sets us up for The Corduroy Enduro this coming weekend in Gooderham, Ontario. The stars have never lined up to allow me to be at this race, but they have in 2024 so I’m heading to The Cord as a first time reporter and am really looking forward to it.

Not only that, but if I can get my hands on an electric-assist bike, I’ll line up against JSR for the MTB race on Friday! I’m told he’s currently leading the +50 class in Vermont, so he must be pretty good at this stuff! Plus, he’s JSR for goodness sake!

MXGP of China

MX2 – GP Classification

Pos Nr Rider Nat. Fed. Bike Race 1 Race 2 Total 1 96 Coenen, Lucas BEL FMB HUS 25 25 50 2 74 de Wolf, Kay NED KNMV HUS 20 22 42 3 516 Laengenfelder, Simon GER DMSB GAS 22 20 42 4 11 Haarup, Mikkel DEN DMU TRI 16 18 34 5 80 Adamo, Andrea ITA FMI KTM 15 16 31 6 8 Mc Lellan, Camden RSA KNMV TRI 14 13 27 7 198 Benistant, Thibault FRA FFM YAM 11 15 26 8 47 Reisulis, Karlis Alberts LAT LAMSF YAM 12 14 26 9 72 Everts, Liam BEL FMB KTM 18 4 22 10 73 Zanchi, Ferruccio ITA FMI HON 9 12 21 11 33 Karssemakers, Kay NED KNMV FAN 8 11 19 12 754 Cosford, Jayce AUS MA YAM 6 10 16 13 489 Walvoort, Jens NED KNMV KTM 7 9 16 14 44 Elzinga, Rick NED KNMV YAM 13 3 16 15 22 Braceras, David ESP RFME FAN 10 5 15 16 139 Shao Hui, Zou CHN CAMF HON 5 7 12 17 767 LI, Hao Yu CHN CAMF KTM 3 8 11 18 66 Fang, Xiang Liang CHN CAMF YAM 4 6 10 19 48 Connolly, Brodie NZL MA HON 2 2 4

Emily and I are going to stay at the new cabin they built over at Gopher Dunes on Tuesday night. We want to see what it’s like and let people know. Thanks for the offer, Derek Schuster. And then I’m going to go ride the 2025 Honda CRF 250 and 450 there on Thursday, I hope with Derek. Let’s see the big #187 out there!

And as I mentioned earlier, I”m looking forward to heading northeast of Toronto to catch my first-ever Corduroy Enduro. I’ll be there for all the goings on on Friday which will include the MTB race and then the press conference/question period. I’d better do some enduro homework before then! I can just bore them with the fact that I raced an enduro up in the same area way back in 1984 on a Can Am 125 “motocross” bike. Man, that did not go well…

Have a great week, everyone. There’s lots of stuff coming up in the near future. Oh, wait…

It looks like we’ll be going ahead with this Direct Motocross/Team Canada MXON tee shirt idea. Our friend Mike Jackson over at Grubwear will be printing them off and shipping them out. We’ll get all the rest of the details (price/shipping) sorted out and post them up later today. I think he said something about beenies and hoodies being available too, but we’ll confirm that before I make any promises.

What’s cool about this is that is opens the door to doing DMX “merch” moving forward, so you can watch for fun design ideas coming in the future.

All proceeds from this run of shirts will go directly to Team Canada MXON’s effort for the 2024 event at Matterley Basin.

OK, now go and have yourself a great week. Sorry I’m a little late this week. I made breakfast and coffee and brought it over to meet Emily on her first break at the hospital. It’s her fault! 🤣

I wonder how I can get some electric-assist MTB skills between now and Friday…

This just in, thanks to GasGas Canada, I will be on a G Trail 3.0 for the race on Friday!