Monday Morning Coffee

By Billy Rainford

Good Monday Morning from the beautiful Maritimes. There’s an overwhelming sense of happiness out here. I remember talking to some racers from the United States in Quebec who were happy to be racing in Canada because “everyone is so nice” and telling them to just wait until they get out east! It’s true, people are great out here and seem to be happy with life in general, and it shows in the way they treat visiting racers and media types.

I was also talking with a few people at Pleasant Valley in Brookfield, NS yesterday and we were noticing just how strong the support for their local riders is. Sure, every track we go to has local riders who have more friends and family at the event than usual, but it’s just at a different level out here.

I remember going to AMA races a bunch of years ago and you could tell where Travis Pastrana was just by the roar of the crowd. Travis wasn’t even a local, he was just that popular! Anyway, on Sunday you could tell where Davey Fraser and Tyler Medaglia were at all times by the cheers from the adoring fans. It was amazing.

MX1 Podium: Davi Millsaps (1-1), Brett Metcalfe (2-2), Tyler Medaglia (4-3).

Check out the excitement on local boy, Tyler Medaglia’s face. He joked on Instagram that he was so excited he forgot to remove his chest protector before heading up on stage. James Lissimore made the comment last night that it’s strange how the CMRC got rid of his home race back at Sand Del Lee and replaced it with his home race in Brookfield, Nova Scotia. Weird.

In the MX2 class, it was Halifax rider, #36 Davey Fraser, who drew the most fans.

#36 Davey Fraser, it could be argued, was the most popular rider on the track all day. Everywhere you looked there were signs and fans screaming for him. There were ‘Fraser 36’ tee shirts all over the place, too. I know he could hear them around the entire track when he was racing. Hopefully, the ConX2Share live video was able to capture some of the enthusiasm.

MX2 Podium: Cole Thompson (1-1), Dakota Alix (3-3), Shawn Maffenbeier (2-4).

Cole Thompson was the dominant rider in the MX2 class Sunday at Pleasant Valley MX Park. He said he was a motivated to prove a point after being docked 3 spots in Ulverton for ‘cutting the track.’ He had to work pretty hard early in both motos and then showed why he is the guy to beat in the 250 class this year. We’ll get to the Photo Report after this article, so I won’t say too much here about the actual racing.

#118 Davi Millsaps was unbeatable in Nova Scotia this weekend.

This was basically the only view other racers got of #118 Davi Millsaps this past weekend. Once again, he chose better lines and made the rough track look relatively easy. I actually asked him how he does that in our podcast interview from Sunday. You can listen to those HERE.

#258 Mitch Cooke was the promoter and racer this weekend, but…

Local hero, #258 Mitch Cooke, set out to do double duty as promoter and racer this week. He went out for free practice in the MX1 B class and easily set fastest time – I think he did it on the first lap when the rest of the riders were rolling jumps and trying to learn the track. Let’s just say, Mitch has a few laps in at this place and really didn’t need a sight lap.

Unfortunately, when he headed out for the timed qualifying session, he slid out in a high-speed, 3rd gear tapped section and high-sided. He actually said that as he was flying through the air, he was hoping to be knocked out so he didn’t feel the pain he was sure he was about to be forced to endure.

He wasn’t knocked out, but said that he separated his shoulder and wasn’t going to force himself through two motos. He did say that if he were in a points battle in the championship that he would probably have lined up, but not this year. It would have been cool to watch him battle with the top guys at his home track, but we’ll have to wait until next year for that, I guess.

#2 Colton Facciotti’s weekend ended up on the ground…twice.

Round 7 will not be one #2 Colton Facciotti will look back on fondly. The above photo is after his crash that happened just after the gate dropped in the first moto. He’s not even to the first turn here. He dusted himself off and jumped into the race dead last and managed to claw his was all the way up to 7th by the checkered flag.

In the second moto, he got out to a pretty good start, rounded the first corner and hit the finish line jump for the first time in the pack and out of my view. I happened to be standing beside GDR team member Matt Bannon and he was receiving word in his head set that Colton was down…hard.

After the rough ending to MX2 team rider, #18 Brad Nauditt, things appeared to be going from bad to worse for the guys. Suddenly, there was more urgency on Matt’s face and he headed off in the direction of the crash. I headed up behind him to see if Colton was OK. What I saw when I crested the hill was #800 Mike Alessi circling to rejoin the race. I turns out, Colton had landed at the edge of the track in some soft dirt and lost the rear end, going down. Alessi was in the wrong place at the wrong time and said he ran right over Colton. Colton got helped off the track, favouring his leg. Uh oh.

At the end of the day when I was interviewing Mike, he informed me that he’d gone over to see Colton and was told that he was fine. Good news. However, after speaking to some others, I learned that he was actually having difficulty lifting his one arm above shoulder level. We’ll have to wait until he gets checked out and we get official word from Colton, himself, or the the team. Hopefully, nothing is injured and we see him back in action ASAP. Good luck, Colton.

#18 Brad Nauditt’s day ended on the ground, too.

I mentioned #18 Brad Nauddit earlier. Brad was up in the mix all day and finished 7th in the first moto. He was up in 7th again in the second and having a good scrap with Davey Fraser. As they came through lapped traffic on the last lap, Brad came up on #79 Tommy Dallaire. Their two lines came together and they went crashing to the ground, hard. Brad managed to get up and crossed the line in 13th place – things weren’t as good for Tommy. Brad came up to me at the end of the day asking if I knew where their pit was so he could check on things. I heard from someone else that Tommy was taken to hospital with a possible leg or hip injury. Hopefully, he’s doing OK.

There are lots of things to talk about from the day that will have to wait until the Photo Report. Here’s a look at the results from round 7 of the 2016 Rockstar Energy Drink MX Nationals:

Washougal Recap Video

Your browser does not support iframes.

There are motocrossers wandering everywhere you go, here in the Greater Truro area. People all have different things they want to do. Some are heading into Halifax to sight-see, others are visiting family. Some are staying at Pleasant Valley to ride the rough, after-Pro-race-day track. Some are making their way to Riverglade near Moncton to ride the track Tuesday. Some are heading to the Bay of Fundy to watch the water come in and go back out. Some will get sucked into Magnetic Hill to be fooled. Some are looking forward to riding Mount Thom. Whatever you choose to do, have a blast out here. James and I are planning a little surf sesh over in Lawrencetown (just north of Halifax) in a couple days. However, I was told the sea was completely flat a couple days ago, so hopefully something is brewing out there and we get a few ripples to ride, at least.