Monday Morning Coffee

By Billy Rainford

Good Monday Morning! I barely have time to get this one in under the wire (Eastern Time, anyway) but I just love this logo that Dawn McClintock designed so much that I can’t skip the column. You ever have one of those mornings when you don’t remember shutting off your alarm? Well, I just had one.

The problem is that I had a dentist appointment in a small town about 35 minutes outside London (a buddy) and I woke up with about 15 minutes to get there. I’m the kind of person who always seems to find himself waiting for others and I really hate being late. If you happened to be north of London between 7:45 and 8:10 this morning, I apologize for the way I was driving the DMX van. I was definitely “that guy” this morning.

Anyway, the work is done and now I can get back to sifting through photos from our whirlwind weekend in New York City. If you’re keeping score at home, yes, that was just two weekends in a row of driving to the east coast for Supercross. Anyone want to buy a 2015 van? Believe me, they’re all highway miles!

If you’ve never been to New York, I definitely suggest you just plan a weekend and do it. I had always had that sort of Homer Simpson relationship with it (Google it, Bowker!) until we went to the New Jersey Supercross last year and took our bicycles with us. The place is amazing and really needs to be experienced, if only once.

Here’s the key, just stay across one of the bridges in New Jersey and head into the city when you want. If you have bikes, bring them. It’s an amazing way to see the city and get exercise (I actually just had a hard time spelling that) at the same time. We didn’t bring ours this time because we just didn’t have the time, but we still managed to head into the city to experience a busy Friday night. It was amazing!

We wandered around looking for some live music and stumbled onto the Mercury Lounge. It’s one of the places I’d heard of before and the club The Strokes famously got…famous in. We stood outside and thought about going in or not. Some dude says, “You should really go in. It’s a great band tonight. Matthew Logan Vasquez from the Delta Spirit is playing.” I pretended to have heard of them and in we went.

What a great show. His voice is like the lead singer from Deer Tick and he flails around on stage like a young Eddie Vedder. It was good. “I was worried about the weather and thought maybe nobody would show up, but this is the perfect amount of people here tonight,” is what he said.

It was one of those nights you see in movies in New York and I’m glad we decided to venture out and do it. It’s all about creating memories, folks, and that was a good one!

But morning came too soon…(Chalk Circle)

New Jersey Supercross Results

Now THAT is what pure joy looks like! Ryan Dungey is back to back 450 SX champion. – Bigwave photo

Cade Clason Update

Canada’s #6 MX1 racer, Cade Clason, was in a heated battle for the final transfer spot in the 450 LCQ Saturday night with #27 Nick Wey. It came down to the last corner on the last lap for it to get weird. Nick was trying to set up Cade and they came into the final corner with a yellow flag waving. Cade left a tiny bit of room on the inside and that was all it took for Nick to force the issue.

It looked like Cade’s bike got lifted of locked for a second and that sent him flying off the track in a heap. I was standing on the far side of the track and all I knew was that only Wey went over the finish line jump. Then I heard people say Cade was favouring his arm and was in some pain.

I didn’t speak to him at the track but managed to get in touch with him Sunday night to find out what was up. It turns out he dislocated his shoulder in the crash. Here’s how he described it:

“I dislocated my shoulder. It took 7 hours to get it in. But yea I’m a OK, just a little sore.”

They were unable to set it at the track so Cade went to the hospital where it took a long time to finally get it back in place. I know the Big Steel Box Redemption Racing Fly KTM team has a photo shoot this week at Club MX so I was concerned that Cade would be able to fake his way through it.

He say’s he’ll do his best to get through it. We’re only a month away from the start of the Rockstar Energy MX Nationals so he’ll need to get himself ready for what could be the most competitive season in Canadian Motocross history! Good luck, Cade.

Cade dislocated his shoulder in that final turn of the LCQ when he got together with Nick Wey. – Bigwave photo

I hope you only had a small coffee for this one. I need to shift gears and get some photos and ‘Faces at the Races’ up before this day disappears. On the upside, I have feeling in my face now so it’s time for breakfast and a cup of coffee, myself. Have a great week!