Monday Morning Coffee

By Billy Rainford

First off, let me thank these three sponsors for supporting our 2016 Parts Canada Walton TransCan content:

We haven’t had time to get to our Saturday finals stuff yet, so as soon as you get finished this cup of coffee we’ll get to work on our ‘Championship Saturday’ photo report.

Were you at Walton this year? Wow, what a week. How about that humidity?! How about those rain and wind storms?! How about that little tornado that may or may not have been spotted?! And how about the fact that this morning there isn’t a cloud in the sky, the humidity has completely disappeared, and there isn’t a lick of wind. Monday, it figures.

I don’t want to go any further and forget to mention the absolutely amazing job the Walton Track Crew did keeping this event going at all. Seriously, a lesser group of people would have thrown their hands in the air and just gone home. Not these guys. Barry Hetherington (AKA Weeman), Kyle Keast, Jamey Keast, Brett Cormier, and whoever else either hopped in a dozer, ran the water drainage pumps, dug with a shovel, or just did anything they could to help get the place in working condition again…thank you.

Riders and families came from all across Canada and deep into the United States for this 25th anniversary edition of the TransCan. It would have been a shame to have simply told them the weather was just too bad to continue, thanks for coming, now go home. That didn’t happen. Thanks to the crew, we were able to actually race on a classic Walton track – rutted and technical.

Honestly, if you were there, you would have thought there was no way the event could continue, it was that bad. So let me just say ‘thank you’ to everyone who stepped up to help. I’m sure, when you wake up sometime on Wednesday, you’ll be able to sit back and appreciate the effort you put in. It did not go unnoticed.

How about a big round of applause for this nutbar, Barry Hetherington, and the rest of the Walton crew for tirelessly working to get the track in primo condition this week. Well done, gang!|Bigwave photo

This is what we were dealing with late Friday afternoon|Bigwave photo

Then James Lissimore sent me this photo from late Saturday night. As if we were ever going to be able to race Sunday, right?!|Lissmore iPhone photo

Parts Canada Walton Pro Open

The first annual Parts Canada Walton Pro Open took place Sunday. Like I said above, the fact we were able to even race is amazing. When I pulled into the track Sunday morning, it looked like a muddy scene from a WWII documentary, only in colour! There was heavy machinery everywhere and people walking around with long faces wondering what was going to happen next.

The weather definitely scared a few riders away, but the rider who were there put on a great show for the fans…and made some cash! The new format is one that I can see the future of our sport adopting. This is Pro Sport and that means it has to be about the fans and the sponsors. When I spoke with people at the end of the day, everyone agreed that it was a format that was easy to follow for the fans. The announcers, Dave Bell, Brett Lee and Mark Perrin, did a fantastic job of explaining what was going to happen throughout the day: MX2 class races and the top 5 go directly to the Superfinal, then the MX1 guys race and the top 5 move directly on, then LCQ races would determine who else gets in. The fact that the weather threatened again meant the LCQ’s were canceled and everyone moved on to the Superfinal which put everyone together to race whichever bike they wanted, 250 or 450.

And it worked! People all knew what was going on, no math had to be used, and fans ran back and forth from fence to fence to catch all the action. It was great!

Anyway, we’ll have a photo report up later to go through all the racing action, but here’s a look a the results:

Superfinal podium: Kaven Benoit (King of Walton), Brad Nauditt, Joey Crown|McConkey photo

After the official podium celebrations and interviews, the three guys decided to do some burnouts…

But What About the TransCan, You Ask…

Since I was at the Saturday night TransCan awards ceremony until 10 and then had to drive an hour back home to London (and watch the last-ever Tragically Hip concert recorded), I haven’t had time to go through all my photos from the 3rd-and-final motos or the awards. We’ll be sure to have a photo report up later on that.

Here are two of the award winners:

Direct Motocross Total Devotion

Tanner Ward wins the 2016 Direct Motocross ‘Total Devotion Award’ and receives it from the original winner of the award back in 2005, Davey Fraser. Tanner gets a free week at Club MX and a Gas Card to get him there and halfway back|Lissimore photo

Alpinestars Bronze Boot

Nicolas Cryer wins the 2016 ‘Alpinestars Bronze Boot,’ the most coveted award of the week|Bigwave iPhone photo

If you’re looking for results from the TransCan, click HERE.

If you’d like to watch the entire day’s racing, it is archived and up on Youtube:

Bud’s Creek Results

Canadian Tyler Medaglia and Cade Clason both raced the Lucas Oil Pro Motocross National at Budd’s Creek Saturday. They have battled all summer against one another and, would you know it, they tied for points down south. Uncanny.

Highlight Video:

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6th Annual MMRS Madoc National is This Weekend!

OK, there is so much content for me to get at that I don’t even know where to start! I think I’ll start by going out for brunch and having a coffee, myself! Congratulations to everyone who raced and called Walton Raceway home the past week. 6 17-hour days in a row for me, but that’s not a complaint…more of a badge of honour, really. Thanks for reading and have a great week.