Monday Morning Coffee

Grab another cup for this week’s Monday Morning Coffee opinion column where we talk about some of what happened in our sport of Motocross

By Billy Rainford

I remember getting a new bike in March way back in the day. It was at a time when bikes were changing so fast that you almost had no idea what you were getting into when you closed the deal. I mean it, bikes were almost unrecognizable year to year back in the early…1980’s.

My 1982 Kawasaki KX80 had numbers on the rear fender and was air cooled. I’m not even sure the forks or shock worked on that thing. In 1983, the bike was an absolute game-changer for the little bike class.

The 1983 Kawasaki KX80 had normal number plates again, was liquid cooled, and even had a little safety seat. Yep, that was a selling point way back then – the little piece of seat that went up the gas tank a way to protect your bits.

I grew like 5 inches over the winter, so the fact that the bike was also the tallest of the then 4 you had to choose from made it the perfect bike for me in my final year of 80cc racing. Truth be told, I really should have moved up to a 125 that season and saved my knees a little, but we really didn’t know what we were doing.

My thoughts are tangenting all over the place as I type this and now the fact that we didn’t know anything reminded me of another story:

We were at a really fast and loamy track in Michigan called S&A – a track nobody I talk to seems to remember. I loved that place. I think it was pretty late in the season and I was racing 80A. I don’t remember my actual finish place but it was high enough for an unknown to the regular District 14 parents for them to start asking questions.

I remember between motos someone came over to our pits and asked us what jetting we were using. My dad and I looked at each other and then my dad turned to him and said, “I don’t know…what do they come with stock???“

Then, during the second moto, my dad was there with his trusty pit board giving me…hell, I have no idea what he used to put on that thing. Another parent marched over to him and said in a threatening/gotcha manner, “We’re going to have your bike torn down after the race!“

I was on the track so I didn’t see it first-hand but my dad told me all about it later. Like I said, we really had no idea what we were doing at the time, so that means we didn’t have a damn thing done to the bike. I think we may have had 4 or 5 holes drilled into the air box with those little louvered covers on them. That was it!

My dad just laughed and didn’t even really know what the guy was talking about, but assured him it would be a waste of everyone’s time and money.

My bike never got “torn down” which probably would have been great for us because maybe then some of the mounts and other nuts and bolts would have been torqued to spec! Seriously, we had no clue back then.

Did I mention that I don’t think we ever even adjusted sag in all my years of racing? I don’t even think we’d ever heard the word! The “trickest” thing we did was mix some octane boost in the gas. Oh, and we had a DG “boost bottle” kit for the 1982 bike, but neither of us knew what it did.

I didn’t have my sag adjusted until I raced the “Legends” Race at Gopher Dunes in 2009 and had none other than Mike Haist set it for me on a bike I borrowed from Siert Wieringa‘s wife. It was a KTM bike they bought from the Factory Team in the USA, if I remember correctly, and it was a rocket. If you’re curious about how the racing went, I just lined up on the far outside and tried to stay out of everyone’s way.

I do remember that Roland Giroux really wanted to bang bars out there! I obliged. I also remember getting lapped by a bunch of riders like I was standing still. They were throwing the word “Legend” around like it was a softball back then.

Wow, that’s not where I thought this column was heading when I first started talking about the month of March! It was going to be something about remembering getting a new bike and trying to go riding when there was still snow patches at the local riding spots. Oh well.

The snow is long gone here in London and that means tracks in the area are open for riding, unless, of course, this spring rain continues. I hope you’re having more luck wherever you’re reading this from.

Hey, good news, this 2023 Scott Foil 30 with Shimano 105 Di2 electric shifting is going up for sale! It’s an XL/58cm and is good if you’re over 6’1″ tall and want to go fast. I’ll have more details up on my personal FaceBook Marketplace ad that I’ll post later today.

We had 5 Canadians racing the 2025 Seattle Supercross on Saturday night. Congratulations to each one of you guys who lined up and gave it a shot. You have to realize the entire country is behind you when you put in the effort.

Here’s a quick breakdown of how they each did:

#61 Cole Thompson

Q: 15th

Heat 2: 5th

Main: 9th

#214 Tyler Gibbs

Q: 37th

Heat 2: 16th

LCQ: 7th

#500 Julien Benek

Q: 22nd

Heat 1: 15th

LCQ: 8th

#585 Blake Davies

Q: 32nd

Heat 1: 13th

LCQ: 15th

#800 Preston Masciangelo

Q: 40th

Heat 1: 19th

LCQ: 12th

We’ll be sure to grab a few of our riders for a quick chat today.

OK, I hope that got you through another cup this morning. Have a great week and Happy April Fool’s Day tomorrow. Anyone remember that time I did that Eli Tomac joke? Yikes, that one went over like a led balloon, and rightfully so. Too far, Bigwave…too far. And then everyone believed I’d traded the DMX Van in for an even older Pontiac Aztek. That one hurt a little bit.