Monday Morning Coffee

Monday Morning Coffee

By Billy Rainford

Good Monday Morning! This is the first Monday of the New Year and things should all be getting back to ‘normal’ around your place – kids struggling to get up in time to be ready for school, parents firing the 3rd cup of hot coffee down their throats to be ready for a day at work, or racers getting ready to load up the truck and trailer for a trip south to train for the upcoming season. Or maybe you’re one of the lucky few who have just finished Round 1 of the Monster Energy AMA Supercross series. If so, it’s time to force your bruised and battered body out of bed and head to the gym! Or maybe start driving into the desert to be ready for Round 2 in Phoenix. Whatever you’re doing this morning, welcome to the first Monday on the new site here on Direct Motocross.

I’ve got to say, I’ve been struggling to get things to a ‘normal’ level here myself. Whenever you load up your life with new things, there is an adjustment period. I’ve been really fighting to get used to this new Mac I got last week. Truthfully, what I’m really struggling with is the fact that I now have none of the programs I used on a daily basis to edit and file photos on this new machine and ‘acquiring’ them the first time was a chore that I’m not looking forward to trying to duplicate again.

I also hope you’ve had a chance to snoop and sniff around the new site. We put a lot of time and effort into the design of it and I think, once you’ve had a chance to loiter a while, you’ll learn to appreciate the changes. Some people really hate change. If you’re one of those, we apologize and hope you have enough left in your current prescription to get through this with us. Try switching computers and operating systems and then learning a new site!

Anyway, we’ve finally got the new Supercross season underway. I’m not going to go over everything that happened here. If you’re looking for what Jeff McConkey thought, he’s posted his first Supercross ‘McThoughts’ of the season and you can check that out HERE.

North American International Motorcycle SUPERSHOW

I jumped in the car with Emily Saturday morning to head the 1 1/2 hours east on the 401 to the International Centre by Pearson International Airport in Mississauga to check out the SUPERSHOW. If we’d done this drive any other weekend this year, it would have been a breeze. I’ve lived in Ontario most of my life and have made this boring drive countless times over the years. I can say, uncategorically, that this was the worst back-and-forth trip I’ve ever taken. Period. Without a doubt.

It took us well over 3 hours to make the drive. If we weren’t completely stopped, we were hovering around 60kph. It was torture. Not only that, one of the main attractions, in my eyes, is always the Todd Kuli speech in front of the ‘MX Stars of Tomorrow‘ kids. In years past, Todd has kept all the parents in the crowd in stitches while they laughed and nodded their heads in agreement with some of the things Todd outlined from his many years as a team mechanic, man friend, and generally meticulous observer of human behavior at the races. It’s well worth the price of admission.

As we painfully made our way toward the event, it became obvious that, if Todd spoke first, we weren’t going to make it in time. A text came in from him asking where we were. I asked if there was any way to set it up so he went in front of the crowd last, but it just wasn’t in the cards for us. As we slowly made our way onto the event grounds, we knew that there was no way we’d made it. Also, they like to be thorough at the entrance and we were instructed to wait until a show employee came to the front and escorted us to where we needed to go. We waited for a few minutes and then made the decision to venture into the 5-theatre monstrosity on our own.

I’d been a couple times before and figured I’d have little trouble locating the Ontario Room #104. Well, we looked like a couple North Americans touring Paris (the one in France, Bowker!) as Emily grew more frustrated with me and I refused to ask for directions. By sheer dumb luck, we walked straight to the room we needed and entered in time to catch Lee Hindle talking to the group about their great exhaust products. No disrespect to Lee, but we were disappointed not to see Kuli up there expousing the virtues of cleanliness, Lu Lu Lemon for men, and what NOT to do when/if you are ever on a big Pro team in the future. We were too late.

Lee Hindle talking to the ‘MX Stars of Tomorrow’ participants.

This is all we got to see Todd Kuli do. “The doctor will see you soon, sir.”

Here are a few shots of the rest of the presenters from the afternoon seminars:

Lee Malette from CORE Motosports.

Louis Ramos talking about self-promotion and social media.

Jacob Balsdon outlining the big list of sponsors involved in the program.

Then organizer Peter Derry put a smile on all our faces as he paced back and forth at the front and talked about some of the things he’s learned about moto over the years.

It was another successful year for the program and I think all the participants learned a great deal about how to deal with potential sponsors now and in the future as they progress through the sport. I think the key take-away was that it isn’t all about results. You can have a successful career in motocross if you treat everyone with respect and conduct yourself as a professional. It made good sense to me.

We then took a little walk around the different rooms and took in the rest of the show. Here are a few shots from our wanderings: