The western swing of the 2006 CMRC Canadian Motocross Nationals kicked off last weekend in British Columbia. Hometown hero, Dusty Klatt was building momentum heading into the event and round three was also the western MX2 series opener. Other than a light shower on Saturday, the weather was perfect and you can't beat the Nanamo track's Pacific Ocean backdrop. With all of that going for it, it's too bad that the venue could only draw a sparse crowd. Despite the crowd, the riders put on a heck of a show.

Report by Brett Dailey, photos by Jason Griffiths

Honda Canada's Dusty Klatt secured a convincing win in Nanaimo. He holeshot the first moto and ran away. In the second moto, JSR holeshot and the two banged bars for quite a few laps. Klatt made an aggressive move to reach striking distance of JSR (basically a bar-dragger on a flat corner -- how does he do that?) and then later made the pass on the outside of a sweeper. Klatt took the win for his second sweep of the series.

Five-time champ, Jean Sebastien Roy has not had to deal with this kind of pressure since the epic days of the JSR/Morgan era.

The Richmond Kawasaki duo of Darcy Lange and Colton Facciotti finished third and fourth overall, respectively. They both have a lot of time on the difficult Nanaimo circuit and it showed.

Marco Dube is gaining momentum. It's too bad that he had such unfortunate luck at Gopher Dunes as he should be higher in the standings right now.

Simon Homans put in his best ride of the year: 7-5 for fifth overall.

Johnny Montes drove the Royal Distributing rig out to Nanaimo for a chance to race the MX1 class. After a hard crash on Saturday, he decided to wait until Calgary for his MX1 season debut. Good call.

The racing for about 4th through 8th has been incredible every weekend. Gavin Gracyk was 7th overall while Dube was 6th.

Keep in mind that JSR pulled out of Southwick due to a sore shoulder. The racing for first place could get even better in a round or two...

Milo Christie. Homans, Gracyk, Dube, Lange, JSR, Klatt and Facciotti rocket off the line.

Here is the story of the MX2 class. Teddy Maier (28) and Jimmy Nelson (42) battled all day. Maier led both motos but Nelson was able to make a late-race charge in both motos and take the lead. What more could a spectator ask for?

Look for an online interview with Nelson later this week.

While running in second place in the final moto, Maier suffered a heart-breaking DNF. It will be tough to make up the points in a short four race series but anything can happen.

Kyle Beaton is a favourite to win this series. The pressure must have got the best of him at Nanaimo as his 5-4 was not the result he had in mind. He ran the pace of Nelson and Maier early in the second moto so Calgary will be interesting.

Gray Davenport made the trek from Utah and was rewarded with second overall! Don't be surprised if he picks up more support for the next round.

Eric Nye was consistent with a 3-3 and has a good shot at the title.

The story of the weekend was Andrew Belin's 6-5 for fifth overall. He started around fifth in both motos and held tough to the last lap.

Richmond Kawasaki's Billy Whitley was having a pretty good day ... until Maier's bike broke.

Rick Hamer-Jackson and Darren Pilling helped out with our live webcast and actually sounded like a couple of professionals!

No, he's not smiling. Kyle Keast had two spectacular crashes in the cement-like whoops section. In the first crash, he landed right on his tailbone and the second crash took him out for the day. It's too bad as Kyle's season has now gone 7-5-17 and he dropped from fifth overall to eighth.

BC's Missy Hacket won the first women's moto over series regulars Malerie Prochnavy, Jolene Van Vugt and Jessica Foster. Unfortunately she was docked five positions for jumping on a caution flag. Her 6-5 posted scores are not an indication of her speed. Look for big things from Missy in the coming years.

Malerie Prochnavy broke Van Vugt's moto win streak and swept Nanaimo. Calgary is the home track for Prochnavy and Foster while Van Vugt wants to get back atop the podium so the next round should be good!

Van Vugt still has a substantial lead in the national standings.

Braaap

...see you at the races.