Monday Morning Coffee

By Billy Rainford

OK, I’ll admit it, unless you live in Hawaii and we’re calling Hawaii Canada, this isn’t a Monday MORNING Coffee. Welcome to your afternoon coffee. Things have been going full steam here on this southeastern road trip. We were at the Daytona SX Saturday followed by the Ricky Carmichael Amateur SX (RCSX) Sunday and then again this morning. In hindsight, I really wish we’d made the drive up and in to Palatka, Florida, to witness Thor Husqvarna Canada rider Tyler Medaglia grab his 5th place finish and Shelby Turner’s 8th at round one of the GNCC Series.

There weren’t as many Canadians competing at the RCSX as I thought there were going to be. We headed back over to the Speedway from Loudmouth Intakes’ Brendan Goldstein‘s place in Palm Coast this morning to catch young Fox KTM Canada rider Tanner Ward in his races.

Watch for a report on how the Canadians did later here on the site. Like I said before, going to all these events is great, but not when you don’t have time to post the content! We’re on our way up the I-95 now. We’re going to drop in on Redemption Racing Fly Dragon KTM’s Nathan Bles at Club MX in Chesterfield, SC. Wait a minute…don’t the Americans make fun of Canadians who call a couch a chesterfield and they have a place named after one?! Come on!

Anyway, congratulations to both Tyler Medaglia and Shelby Turner for their great performances in Palatka. Shelby also raced the first round of the Geico Endurocross in Daytona the previous night. Like I said, there was a lot going on down here!

Here are a few pics from Sunday in Daytona:

That’s Kawasaki USA’s Ken Essex on the right. He’s a proud Canadian and is keeping some pretty high-level company these days.

You just know that young DiFrancesco will get his turn signing autographs if he keeps improving at the same rate.

Ricky Carmichael took his turn on the mic in front of the big pre-race riders’ meeting.

That’s young Quebec rider #20 Jeremy McKie who is racing here in Daytona. With a better start he should be up in the top 5 Monday.

Two familiar faces: Matt and Joey Crown. Joey is now a hot-shot in the B classes. He did a combo in the rhythm section today that had the Pros watching and shaking their heads. It was big!

‘Frenchie’ helping his rider at the gate. Hodges got a 2nd place start in the heat we watched together and then when a bike went cartwheeling through the air Luc said, “Yep, that was probably him…” It was.

Cale Foster and MX101 Fox Yamaha’s Dylan Wright heading to the line Sunday.

Dylan’s speed was there but his inside gate pick left him fighting for scraps right off the start. After battling hard with Darian Sanayei all moto, he crashed on the last lap and fell way back. He led out practice today.