Monday Morning Coffee

It’s time for Monday Morning Coffee where we talk about some of what happened in the sport of Motocross and usually much more…

By Billy Rainford

I wouldn’t believe it if I hadn’t lived it! Yep, the #DMXVan made another trip to Florida AND BACK! I had someone ask me my thoughts on having a minivan to do what I do and I had nothing negative I could say. Well, unless you require a little more space and don’t want to look like a bit of a vagrant when and if you end up sleeping in it from time to time, that is.

My 2015 Dodge Grand Caravan was bought new in 2015 for $19, 999. Yep, it’s true. I’ve done the brakes once and the front right wheel bearing, that’s it! I haven’t even had to do the exhaust on it and it’s closing in on 450K kilometres now.

Wait, I lied. I had a tiny squeak from the brakes right before I left for Daytona this time and when I pulled in to get some gas in Ohio the noise was unbearable. It went from a slight warning to disaster immediately. They wanted to do the fronts as well, but I said to just do the loud ones in the back, so that’s what we did.

I really don’t want to put any money into this thing but this was necessary.

Anyway, I told the person who asked that he really needs a minivan, so we’ll wait and see what he decides to go with. They likely discontinued my version of the minivan because they were too inexpensive and last too damn long!

I actually had a few people ask me how I liked the newer van when they saw me. They were absolutely floored when I told them this was the original van.

I rolled into my driveway Sunday afternoon after coming home from the Indianapolis Supercross on Saturday. It’s only about a 6 1/2 hour drive to London from there so I drove as far as I could before pulling over to sleep.

On the way north from Daytona, I stopped in at GPF to see how Josh Woods was doing. I already knew that new Red Bull KTM rider #24 Dylan Rempel was training there but I didn’t know Kaven Benoit was also there training Dylan and a small group of other pro and amateur Canadian riders, so the stop was well worth it.

As always happens on this busy trip south, I spend the 2 weeks filling my hard drive with content and never seem to find the time to do anything with it until I get home. Fortunately, we’ve got an off weekend this week so I’ll be able to hunker down and get to a lot of it, so be sure to check back often as I get things done.

I managed to get a video with Rempel up:

It was also really cool to see #22 Chad Reed there with his family. Chad was actually putting in a lot of laps on his Yamaha 450 and even got in the middle of the young pros out there. I’m not sure all of the riders even realized who it was out there with them!

Josh told me that this was actually Chad’s first time in Cairo because back in his racing days this was full on Ricky Carmichael country. I would have liked to talk to him about that, but I didn’t want to bug him and I never really got the chance. Eli Reed was very nice and was talking with everyone as Chad and their daughter put in laps, so that was nice to see.

I still can’t believe the story about Al Strickert. He headed down south for a 5-month adventure to ride a ton of tracks in the southeast. unfortunately, he crash and hurt his hip. Well, when he went to the hospital to get it checked out, he left with a new hip! Yes, he got a hip replacement at the end of December in Tallahassee, Florida.

I got down there for Daytona and Al had already been on the bike! Don’t forget, his nickname is “Spazz” so the math checks out.

Then, when I went to Graham Swamp in Palm Coast for a mountain bike with Brendan Goldstein, Al came along to ride! He’s on what can only be described as a “commuter” or maybe a “hybrid” bike. It was, however, electric-assist, so that helped, but the 1″ of soft fork travel and hard tail did not. He managed to make it around the loop without too much trouble and didn’t have to be rushed back to the hospital for re-surgery. I was terrified he was going to mess up and be forced to plant his right leg down hard, but he managed to direct any issues to his left leg and he was none the worse for wear at the end of the loop.

It was funny that Mitch Cooke‘s van was in the parking lot when we got there. He just happened to be out doing a couple loops at the same time, so we shot the breeze in the parking lot for a while and he headed out with us on his second loop.

We were going at a pretty pedestrian pace, so he took off to do his lap at a much more “braggable” speed. As we were about to hit the trail, we all noticed Al didn’t even have a helmet. We told him not to forget it and he told us he doesn’t even have one! Mitch would hear of it and went to his van to grab a spare that he happened to have and forced it onto Al’s head.

Oh, that helmet ended up in my van and I still have it. I guess I’ll return it when we hit River Glade???

My only regret from that stay down in the Daytona area was that we never made it over to Main Street to take in all the craziness that is Bike Week. There are 2 bars in particular we always hit and I’m sorry to report that we didn’t make it this time.

I was first at Bike Week in 1985. I bought a Rat’s Hole tee shirt back then but it was likely a medium and I just don’t have it anymore. I bought a replacement in around 1991 but it was likely a large and I lost it somewhere.

I received a photo of Brendan and Alex on Main Street well after I’d left. Looks like they had a good time without me…

While I”m on the subject, thank you to the pair of them for hosting me once again. They’ve moved from Palm Coast up to St Augustine, so my commute to Daytona International Speedway was an extra 30 minutes but the coolness of the town made it worth the drive. If you’ve been to Florida but never to the “Oldest City in North America” you should definitely put in on your list. It’s really like nothing else in Florida.

We had a couple nasty femur injuries during my time down south, so I want to send well wishes to this pair of riders:

Mike Alessi crashed at the RCSX:

Good luck to both these guys getting back to 100% health.

The weather here in SWO seems to have taken a turn toward spring. We’re in the double digits and it’s forecast to be 18C on Thursday! That’s shorts/cycling weather!

Unfortunately, we got so much snow this winter that it will take more than a week for this stuff to disappear.

I didn’t touch the whole Daniel Blair/RIcky Carmichael/Leigh Diffey situation and I’m not sure I plan to. I did go into the Indy round of Supercross with one eye on the crowd the whole time, figuring there’d be at least a few signs or tee shirts worthy of capturing with my camera. but I didn’t see anything at all.

The only thing I can relate this story to is my time working in the film industry in BC. I was a lowly PA (Production Assistant) at the time and I remember a few people asking me what I was doing. One said to me: “You’re trying to get into this industry while the rest of us are trying to find a way out!“

It was a pretty toxic environment to work in with everyone seemingly looking over their shoulder to see who was out to get them. I was at the very bottom so nobody was out to get me! Lol

Anyway, it’s a very ego-driven industry and all I can say is that I can see how problems would arise, no matter who you are or what position you’re in.

I”m on very little sleep from the past few nights, so I’m going end this one here. I’ll be sure to start making the deep dive into my files from the last 2 weeks and get things up and posted as fast as I can.

Have a great week, everyone. Oh, and is daylight savings time always this early in the year? Don’t get me wrong, I love it, but this just seems earlier than usual.

Hmm, who can I get to say it this week…