Monday Morning Coffee Opinion Column

It’s time for some Monday Morning Coffee where we talk about what happened in the sport of motocross and usually a lot more.

By Billy Rainford

OK, so it was actually pretty cold the final day of the Thor Mini O’s Presented by Pro Circuit. The 53rd annual event at Gatorback Cycle Park in Newberry, Florida, ended with a morning that saw the temperature hovering around the freezing mark!

Thats’a cold Gator Pit!

What an event this is. It was cool to see a bunch of riders who make this an annual trip and to see and meet a few first timers. We had a few really good performances, too!

#630 Mason Murdy.

#630 Mason Murdy took home 2 MX titles this year. He was up against some really good up-and-comers from the USA and made quite the name for himself this year. One youngster’s name is #674 Anderson Waldele. Don’t worry about Anderson, he took home enough titles at this year’s event. I have photos and video of Mason winning with the big smile and Anderson in tears beside him in the protest corral. This little guy takes it seriously and will likely be a name you’ll be hearing a lot in the near future.

#381 Nicolas Lemire.

#381 Nicolas Lemire from Timmins, Ontario, took home the 450 C title. Nick joins a pretty solid list of recent Canadians to win a C class title that includes Quinn Amyotte, Marco Cannella, and Austin Watling, to name a few.

Whether you’re there going for titles or just to experience the biggest amateur race of the year, I’d suggest everyone pen this one in on your race calendars for 2025. You don’t have to qualify for the Mini O’s and there were 6000 entries! It’s huge.

RadMX photo.

It’s always fun to talk to the racers and families who are there for the first time. No matter what you’re expecting, the Mini O’s seems to exceed your wildest imagination of how big and fast it is. C riders are Intermediates and B riders are top-level Pro riders! It’s crazy. To win a title here means you are on your way to something big if you want it.

#40 Caden Dudney.

Speaking of something big, the rider who claimed #studstatus this year was #40 Caden Dudney. He won the Dunlop Silver Tire Award as the top A class/Pro Sport rider when points are combined from SX and MX.

Not only does she absolutely rip, but they awarded Lachlan Turner with the Good Citizenship award!

#99 Lachlan “La La” Turner took the Women’s 12+ class win in MX after swapping wins with the always fast #301 Jordan Jarvis. The two of them went at it every lap of both motos and it was fun to watch. A big part of me hopes the US WMX series fails and we can have some of these top riders head north to our series. La La also won the Girls (11-16) title, so she’s got a lot of riding years in front of her!

I shot lots of interviews etc. that I’ll get to work on as soon as you finish your coffee.

Tyler Gibbs Wins 2024 AMO Arenacross Title

Tyler Gibbs wins 2024 AMO Arenacross title. | James Lissimore photo

It seems like Tyler Gibbs should already have a few of these titles, he’s that good indoors. Congratulations to Tyler on getting it done this year. It looked like #476 Collin Jurin from Washington State may have been the fastest rider again, but he was only able to race the Friday nights of either weekend, so he fell short.

Here’s a look at the final points:

PRO-AM POINTS
Place – Name
Number – Hometown		 11/22/2024
Finish		 11/23/2024
Finish		 11/29/2024
Finish		 11/30/2024
Finish		 Total Points
1st – TYLER GIBBS
#22  – Mission, BC		 2nd 1st 6th 1st 87
2nd – QUINN AMYOTTE
#1  – Blackstock, ON		 4th 3rd 2nd 2nd 82 (-5)
3rd – BLAKE DAVIES
#580  – Mission, BC		 3rd 4th 3rd 5th 74 (-13)
4th – ASHTON OUDMAN
#480  – Sedro Woolley, WA		 6th 2nd 4th 4th 73 (-14)
5th – PARKER EALES
#18  – Maple Ridge, BC		 5th 5th 5th 3rd 68 (-19)
6th – TRAVIS GIBBS
#151  – Abbotsford, BC		 8th 7th 8th 8th 53 (-34)
7th – DEVYN SMITH
#34  – Mission, BC		 9th 8th 10th 6th 51 (-36)
8th – COLLIN JURIN
#476  – , WA		 1st   1st   50 (-37)
9th – DAWSON GRAVELLE
#819  – Mission, BC		 10th 9th 11th 9th 45 (-42)
10th – LIAM DODDS
#58  – Revelstoke, BC		 7th 6th 9th DNF 41 (-46)

We’ll be sure to grab Tyler to talk about the series and his big win.

Cole Thompson 2nd in Australia Again

Canadian Cole Thompson finished 2nd in SX2 at the Fox Australian Supercross series again behind his teammate Shane McElrath.

SX 2

  1. Shane McElrath 113
  2. Cole Thompson 96
  3. Brodie Connolly 94
  4. Kayden Minear 80
  5. Reid Taylor 72
  6. Alex Larwood 70
  7. Liam Atkinson 55
  8. Kaleb Barham 51
  9. Mackenzie O’Bree 50
  10. Jayce Cosford 41

SX 1

  1. Joey Savatgy 115
  2. Dean Wilson 109
  3. Luke Clout 96
  4. Jed Beaton 92
  5. Aaron Tanti 79
  6. Hayden Mellross 69
  7. Dylan Willis 63
  8. Jack Mather 53
  9. Brett Metcalfe 49
  10. Joel Wightman 47

OK, I’m falling behind already today. We’re getting a bunch of snow here in Southwestern Ontario, so I’ll be regretting not making sure I had the snowblower ready to go. We usually start the thing up to do our driveway and end up going up and down the crescent doing at least 4 or 5 before we’re done.

Have a great week. I’ll get to work on some of the content from this past week in Florida, so watch for that.

J Law seems to get people talking, so we’ll let him say it: “See you at the races...”