By Billy Rainford
It’s over! We put a fork in this weird 2020 season on Saturday afternoon at Gopher Dunes. We just did our 2-week stint at the outdoor Supercross track just outside of Tillsonburg, Ontario. What did you think?
I think they gave us a couple very good tracks to race, however, the rather extensive injury list would point to another issue.
It’s like trying to get your first job: you don’t get hired because you don’t have any experience, but you can’t get any experience until you get hired for a job!
I think that’s exactly what happened on the tricky tracks that were a blend of Arenacross and Supercross.
We’re always chirping on social media that we’d like to see more of our riders heading south to “take a shot at AMA Supercross.” Well, as Donk pointed out on one of our Instagram posts, “Can we all just put a little emphasis and understanding now, as to why these (our) guys don’t “just load up and go race” Supercross?!”
2020 Rockstar @triplecrownseries SX final round INJURY LIST:
2 @mattgoerke IN – foot injury
5 @t_medaglia OUT – knee
9 @dylan.wright9 OUT – knee
11 @dfraser_11 OUT – heel/ACL
15 @jesspettis OUT – knee
16 @colethompson16 IN – shoulder
18 @_tannerward OUT – sore back
22 @jmitchell_96 OUT – hand
28 @samgaynor28 OUT – shoulder
30 @19halstead OUT – newly married
54 @filthyphil54 OUT – hand
64 @liamofarrell26 OUT – here and healed from his crash but not racing
82 @zager781 OUT – femur
164 @rydermcnabb164 OUT – sore back
942 @prestonmasciangelo_942 OUT – hand
77 @caseykeast IN – knee
157 @wyattwaddell157 OUT – hand
223 @austinjones223 OUT – wrist
243 @schildt243 IN – ankle
That’s a long list! A couple of the names on there were injured before the SX racing, but the majority managed to hurt themselves once it started. And if you were to add to this list all the riders who had hit the ground hard but were still racing, I think we’d have every name from the entry list mentioned here.
Supercross is the clean and beautiful sister to the dirty and ugly Motocross. However, SX gets angry fast! It’s all about hitting the rhythms and timing everything perfectly. Sure, it looks great when it’s going great, but try to force the issue and you get into trouble immediately.
Many of our riders found this out the hard way and ended up going for spectacular crashes over the 4 rounds of Canadian Supercross.
I hope everyone now gets a chance to recooperate to be ready for whatever comes next.
You could watch certain riders slowly improve and that was actually pretty enjoyable. I’ll single out #43 Ryan Derry here.
Ryan is the rider who seems to fall in between the top riders chasing podiums and the other riders behind him. He ended up racing alone in most of the Mains that I took notice of.
However, you could watch him methodically approach the tricky sections and eye them up. He didn’t force the issue and that’s why he’s likely at his engineering job without a cast this morning.
His dad, Peter Derry, was on the infield cheering him on and the two of them slowly mastered the triple after the finish line and then the triple, triple, triple rhythm section that was giving riders fits.
The point I’m trying to make is that Supercross takes time to get the hang of. You rarely approach a blind triple that seems to shoot you to the moon on a Motocross track. To quote INXS, it’s a “new sensation” and you don’t feel comfortable right away.
So, where does this leave us? It leaves us with a practice track situation is what it does.
You just aren’t going to get batter at it unless you have the opportunity to ride a real Supercross track. Enter Vision Built in Putnam, Ontario.
#26 Josh Cartwright put in time at the legit SX track built by the Dean Brothers and it showed this week when they increased the size of the whoops section and he blitzed them right away.
They have two sections of whoops at this practice track and the one is shaped just like the ones this past week at rounds 3 and 4. No surprise, as Brandon Dean is the one who had a hand in building them.
So, when more and more people get the chance to ride real Supercross tracks for practice, we’ll start seeing our riders looking more comfortable. It’s going to take some time, but I think we’ve taken the first step toward making that happen.
West coast riders have the advantage of the Future West Moto Arenacross series that has been around forever and it shows. They’ve tried running indoor series in Ontario sporadically over the years and they always seem to fall flat.
In fact, the Future West Moto 2020 Canadian Arenacross Championships are just around the corner!
Let’s have a look at who won what this Supercross season:
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250 TRIPLE CROWN POINTS ($2,000 to the winner)
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450 TRIPLE CROWN POINTS ($20,000 to the winner)
Here’s our final Raceday Recap of the season:
Round 4 was the final Pro race for #2 Matt Goerke, and he didn’t disappoint. Matt and #16 Cole Thompson gave us all something to talk about as we head into this off-season.
Right from the drop of the first gate, they got a little “spicy” with each other.
I shadowed Matt a little for his final day, and he was nice enough to let me chat with him at different points throughout the day. I really want to get to editing this video, so I’ll move this coffee along…
Matt went out with the overall win (2-1 to Cole’s 1-2) and he was happy about that. If you haven’t watched the racing, be sure to check it out because the two of them played some cat and mouse out there and it was WWE entertaining.
In our post-race interview, Matt said that he wasn’t very good at dirty riding and that he was a little embarrassed about the whole thing. It was pretty funny.
Anyway, congratulations on leaving your indelible mark on the Canadian racing scene, Matt. Your name will always be spoken in the same breath as the other greats who have raced our circuit. What more can you ask?
OK, before I get too sentimental here, let’s move on…
Do you have the day off? If so, check out the Racer TV coverage from the Round 10 of the 2020 GNCC at Burr Oak:
MXGP of Lombardia
Lucas Oil Pro Motocross | Round 7 at WW Ranch
You can actually find the entire day’s coverage on YouTube, but you didn’t hear that from me…
Have a great week and a safe drive home. We’ll see you…well, when will we see you? You never know, I just may show up at Chilliwack Heritage Park next month…
Wait, I want to wish Terri Taylor “Get well soon!” after that very ugly forehead injury during the fireworks display to end the night on Saturday at Gopher Dunes. Wow, that is a pretty bad one!
