Frid'Eh Update:Presented by Royal Distributing
MAY 18, 2007

By Danny Brault

The Toyota AMA Motocross Nationals kick off this weekend in Sacramento, California, and that means we’ll finally see our champ, Dusty Klatt, make his outdoor debut on his Star Racing Yamaha YZ250F. Klatt will be much more in his element at Hangtown, especially after two decent motos at the Glen Helen Prequel last weekend.

“Speed-wise, I feel pretty good,” said Klatt after the race. “I just need to work on my starts.”

While his results weren’t exactly up to his expectations, Klatt did run up front with Josh Grant in one moto and made his way into the top ten in both motos after mid-to-back of the pack starts. One thing that Dusty has going for him is stamina. He said that the motos were nearly forty minutes and felt good the whole time. I’m not going to go make some crazy prediction for Campbell River’s finest this weekend (like when I said throughout the SX season that he would podium). I just hope he gets a good start and survives the first round unscathed. It’s a long series and consistency has been the key in any series these days as there are so many injuries, crashed and DNFs.

The last time I spoke with Klatt, he sounded a little bored of the California scene—even with his girlfriend Kayla and pug, Bunny, keeping him company—and was trying to persuade his boss, Bobby Reagan, into letting him spend the summer at home on the island. His wish has come true and after the second round at Mount Morris, Klatt will drive home and be back where he’s most comfortable and then fly to the races from BC.

While Dusty was warming up for the outdoors at GH, the journeyman, Doug DeHaan, sharpened his skills at the CMRC Ontario Provincial round at Auburn Hills. DeHaan lives just over an hour south of the track in Thorndale (near London) and has made it out to the GP style track for the past two years. The BTO Sports/ Butler Brothers Honda rider will also remain at his Canadian residence during the AMA Nationals and, if I’m feeling generous, I may take Dougie out for a lesson or two. A lesson in what? I’m not sure yet.

To see how DeHaan fared in the stacked MX1 pro clas at Auburn, check out the race report on provincials.racerxcanada.com.

Grey Davenport came out of nowhere last year to earn a ride with the Richmond Racing Kawasaki team for the MX2 West series. Unfortunately, the Richmond team retired and it’s now labeled Monster Energy Canadian Kawasaki—and they don’t have any room for Davenport. If anyone is interested in a hard working and very fast MX2 rider, Davenport is ready for hire—so is his friend Richie Kaumo who also raced the MX2 West last year on a KTM.

Check out this shot of Royal Distributing KTM's Matt Barnes showing off his new bold #12.

photo: Shawna Nelles

I hope that everyone in Southwestern Ontario has June 3rd marked down on their calendar, for the Gopher Dunes national. If watching the best Canadian racers isn’t enough to get you off the couch and out to the Dunes, surely a post race party will. Racer X Canada, together with the Schuster family and Shift Racing Canada, are hosting a shindig at the Royal Tavern in Tillsonburg (my back still aches when I hear that word) beginning at 7 PM following Sunday’s racing. Check out the flyer below for complete details.

 

 

I guess Ryan Lockhart and Johnny Montes are training together before the Ste-Julie national next weekend. When I first heard this, I instantly thought of Corey and Trevor of the Trailer Park Boys, trying really hard to impress Julian and Ricky. And when I was talking on the phone with Lockhart, he kept yelling at Montes to quit screwing around with his protein shake concoction.

The two East Coasters made some money at the Riviere Du Loup AX last weekend, and they’ll be traveling together to the Quebec City round this weekend. After spending some time on his RM-Z250, the Newf is starting to wish he was racing the MX2 East now. I thought it was odd Lockhart is so fond of the small bike all of sudden, because he’s been nagging for a 450 deal for years and now he has it.

I suggested Lockhart bring out the stock RM-Z250 to Moncton and race both classes—Mitch Cooke style. I’m sure that would get those moto hungry Maritimers going!

Not only is Johnny Montes running his own Kawasaki team this year, he’s also found a unique—but very necessary—outside the industry sponsor: Tylenol.

“One of the guys on our amateur program works for Tylenol and brought them to the table,” says Montes on the deal. I bet that sponsorship will come in handy for me after those Quebec races—and the Montreal SX!

I see that the Leatt Brace has some competition from a Breaking News item over on racerxill.com.

I was chatting with Ogio’s Jeff Williams on Thursday for a bit in the magazine. He informed me that Ogio and Red Bull are putting together a cool relay race in Pemberton with amateur and pro racers on the Wednesday between the Calgary and Nanaimo nationals. Williams says they will pick probably ten of each, and invite out Ogio sponsored riders Michael Willard, Johnny Montes and others.

It's official, Ogio employees have too much fun. Jeff Williams works in a little guitar hero while he waits, and waits, and waits, for Jason Griffiths to answer email.

More Ogio antics: this time our esteemed columnist, Andy Bell, shows off his backflip skills--sans bike.

Don’t forget to tune into the first show of Canadian MX Radio next Monday night at 9:00 PM EST. The commentators for the Canadian Nationals, Marc Travers and Brian Koster, did a great job with the first season of the show last year and are looking to make things even more candid and entertaining this summer. Be sure to vote on the Machine Racing poll for who you think they should bring onto the show next week.

I must say, no matter what happens in my life from here on out, my life is complete after watching this clip on YouTube.

Well folks, I’m off to Stayner to do some riding with Chuck Mesley so I’ll pass this off to Brett Dailey to finish up this week’s Update.

Thanks Danbro. By the way, if I’m the boss, how did Danny end up with the better—and higher paying—job?

As Danny mentioned, this Sunday is the opening round of the AMA Toyota Motocross Championships in Sacramento, CA. Apparently Racer X will host a live webcast on http://www.motocross.com/ so make sure you check that out and cheer for our Canucks. This will be one of the last Ricky Carmichael / James Stewart showdowns so you don't want to miss it.

The TV package for the AMA nationals is very impressive. Canada’s Erin Bates will join the broadcast team alongside Jeff Emig and Ralph Sheheen. The SPEED schedule is below and, as you can see, most races will be broadcast on Sunday evenings, one week after the events. In addition there are three rounds – Budds Creek, Red Bud and Millville - that are slated to receive same-day coverage.

2007 AMA TOYOTA MOTOCROSS CHAMPIONSHIP PRESENTED BY FMF ON SPEED

Event Date: Location; *Air Date/Time/Class
May 19-20: Hangtown Motocross Classic, Sacramento; CA-May 27, 6 pm - Motocross
May 19-20: Hangtown Motocross Classic, Sacramento; CA-May 29, 3 pm - Motocross Lites
May 26-27: High Point Raceway, Mt. Morris, PA; Jun 10, 6 pm - Motocross
May 26-27: High Point Raceway, Mt. Morris, PA; Jun 5, 3 pm - Motocross Lites
Jun 9-10: MX 338, Southwick, MA; Jun 17, 5 pm - Motocross
Jun 9-10: MX 338, Southwick, MA; Jun 19, 3 pm - Motocross Lites
Jun 16-17: Budds Creek Motocross Park, Budds Creek, MD; Jun 17, 6 pm - Motocross (Same Day)
Jun 16-17: Budds Creek Motocross Park, Budds Creek, MD; Jun 26, 3 pm - Motocross Lites
Jun 30-Jul 1: Red Bud Track N Trail, Buchanan, MI; Jul 1, 6 pm - Motocross (Same Day)
Jun 30-Jul 1: Red Bud Track N Trail, Buchanan, MI ;Jul 10, 3 pm - Motocross Lites
Jul 14-15: Unadilla Valley Sports Center, New Berlin, NY; Jul 21, 8 pm - Motocross
Jul 14-15: Unadilla Valley Sports Center, New Berlin, NY; Jul 24, 3 pm - Motocros Lites
Jul 21-22: Thunder Valley, Lakewood, CO; Jul 29, 6 pm - Motocross
Jul 21-22: Thunder Valley, Lakewood, CO; July 31, 3 pm - Motocross Lites
Jul 28-29: Washougal Motocross Park, Washougal, WA; Aug 4, 6 pm - Motocross
Jul 28-29: Washougal Motocross Park, Washougal, WA; Aug 7, 3 pm - Motocross Lites
Aug 11-12: Spring Creek MX Park, Millville, MN; Aug 12, 6 pm - Motocross (Same Day)
Aug 11-12: Spring Creek MX Park, Millville, MN; Aug 21, 3 pm - Motocross Lites
Aug 25-26: Steel City Raceway, Delmont, PA; Sep 2, 8:30 pm - Motocross
Aug 25-26: Steel City Raceway, Delmont, PA; Sep 4, 3 pm - Motocross Lites
Sep 1-2: Freestone County Raceway, Wortham, TX; Sep 9, 6 pm - Motocross
Sep 1-2: Freestone County Raceway, Wortham, TX; Sep 11, 3 pm - Motocross Lites
Sep 8-9: Glen Helen Raceway, San Bernardino, CA; Sep 15, 8:30 pm - Motocross
Sep 8-9: Glen Helen Raceway, San Bernardino, CA; Sep 18, 3 pm - Motocross Lites
*Air Dates & Times Subject To Change

Unfortunately, we’ll miss the Hangtown broadcast as we’ll all be at Ste-Julie for the season opener of CMRC’s Monster Energy Motocross Nationals in Ste-Julie, Quebec!

We’re stepping up our coverage of the Canadian nationals once again this year and I’ll be hitting the road in a FunMover (thanks again to Toby Knowles for a great deal on his old rig!) to cover the nationals. To complement our road trip and make a terrific story for the magazine and website, we’re inviting one local up-and-coming rider to pit with us for the day and enjoy the benefits and exposure of being a Factory Rider for a Day!

 

Our factory rider for Ste-Julie is MX101 Yamaha’s Jeremy Medaglia. The 17 year old Kemptville, Ontario resident is the younger brother of Suzuki OTSFF's Tyler Medaglia. Jeremy scored points at Ste-Julie last year and he has been ripping up the track this spring and currently leads the 125 and 250 Intermediate provincial championships. In fact, he had a great battle with Ohio’s Tony Gallo last weekend in Auburn with Medaglia beating him in two motos for the overalls in 125 and 250 Intermediate. Keep in mind that Gallo finished third in 450B Mod at the Vegas World Minis. We’re very excited to work with Jeremy and the MX101 gang at Ste-Julie and we know that Jeremy will turn some heads next weekend.

MX101 Yamaha's Jeremy Medaglia is our factory rider for Ste-Julie.

photo: Allison Kennedy

Here is a brief interview with Medaglia and look for more information on Monday.

Check out this awesome custom gear that Wrex has designed for him to wear next weekend! Wrex can do just about any custom gear ranging from motocross to BMX to supermoto gear and even pit shirts and retro gear. Visit wrex.ca for more info.

 

You’re probably wondering why we chose Medaglia for Ste-Julie over a rider from Quebec. Well, we had a brother combo lined up for Ste-Julie but their dealer wanted to ensure that they could run their stock dealer graphics at their hometown race. Medaglia was originally our rider for Sand Del Lee so we just switched the two riders and our Quebecers will race for us at Sand Del Lee instead. The premise of the program is to help the riders promote themselves and their sponsors so we were happy to accommodate the dealer. Also, the ultimate goal is to have one of our factory riders end up on a factory supported team next year so this should be an exciting summer!

We have one of Canada’s hottest and most promising young racers lined up for Gopher Dunes but you’ll have to wait until the Monday before the race to find out who it is!

Our friend Dave Arnold is back in action on the Canadian supermoto scene. His return was marked by a few podiums on the weekend in Trois Rivieres, Quebec. I'm happy for Arnold as he seriously considered hanging up his boots for good after slugging it out on the AMA Supermoto circuit last year. Arnold has offered Danny the opportunity to line up for an upcoming supermoto national with some help from Machine Racing and the rest of Arnold's sponsors. Remember, Danny has a long history of crashing and breaking bikes (remember Davey Coombs' pretzeled CRF250?) so this could be interesting...

As you know, Ignition Racing, the creators of the dB Dawg, sponsor this update each week. The last time I was out practicing at Mill Hill, I was delighted to see that every rider there was using a dB Dawg to keep noise levels down. Track owner, Blaine Prest, made a commitment early in the year to do something to reduce noise at his track and he sure followed through. Good work! Blaine's sponsor, Kirk Avery of High Gear Motorsports, is holding a race this weekend at the Kingston track in Nova Scotia. It's a nice sandy track with a great layout and Kirk says that he is reworking all of the jumps to make them into tabletops. This comes after many of the jumps on the River Glade track in Moncton were mowed down last year to keep things safe and reduce raceday injuries. Mandated dB Dawgs for noise reduction, sweeping track changes for rider safety ... is Atlantic Canada leading the way for the rest of the country? Sure seems like it.

Speaking of Ignition Racing, we're delighted to announce that they are the title sponsor for our Factory Ride for a Day Program, now labelled the Ignition Racing Racer X Canada Factory Rider for a Day Program (hey, that's almost as long as Blackfoot's team name!). Justin Moore of Ignition Racing has been very supportive of our magazine over the past year or two and he has some great products to showcase at the nationals so this arrangement is a great fit. Click here to check out some of Ignition's products including the dB Dawg, pre-oiled air filters, motorcycle stands, protective gear and more. Contact your local dealer for a dB Dawg and give it a try for your next practice session. Your neighbours will thank you.

Our new issue will be hitting mailboxes next week. Team Toyota Yamaha BlackfootDirect.com Fox Racing’s Jean-Sebastien Roy was the obvious choice for the cover. JSR finds himself in unfamiliar territory this year, with a #2 and a Yamaha. Fortunately he’s still with his familiar Blackfoot family and they’ve been working hard to continue their winning tradition.

Inside the issue you’ll find a terrific feature on Darcy Lange written by Allison Kennedy, a feature on Canadian mechanics working in the U.S. written by Steve Matthes, and a feature on our 2006 Total Devotion Award recipient, Manitoba's Ryan Millar, reaping the benefits of his free one-week stay at Millsaps Training Facility in Cairo, GA, written by Danny Brault. I know you’ll enjoy the issue.

 

That’s it for me. I’ve got a lot to do before I hit the road next Thursday for the rest of the summer so I better get cracking. Steve Matthes will take it over from here...

OK folks, this is getting stranger by the minute. Here's a little background: a few weeks back, I was contacted by Eric Sorby who was asking for some help to get him a ride in Canada. I put the word out there and talked to some guys and in the meantime, Eric was asking me my opinion about other teams. So one night I got an IM from him saying he was riding for Simon Homans Racing and could I help him get a helmet and boot deal? No problem, I said, I will see what I can do but can I get an interview tomorrow?

So it was all set until he spoke with me the next day and told me the deal was off, he was going to help James Stewart out all summer by being his man-friend. That is what I reported last week in the Frid'Eh update. Then I hear that the deal is back on and he is racing again. I contacted him to ask what's up and he told a mutual friend that he didn't want to talk to me about it. Huh? Hey, pal, YOU were the one that harassed me for a ride, sponsors and the schedule. In short, I'm not sure if he is racing or not. If there’s a bunch of take-outs and track cutting going on in Ste-Julie, then he's there.

I am very disappointed that there was no Mitch Cooke/Georges Jobe update this week, so I thought it would be fun to make one up....

This week in Belgium, Mitch Cooke ran sand hills with Georges Jobe with his boots on. They raced up and down the hills and Georges commented that he thought Mitch was currently at 83% conditioning and was not happy as he thought that Mitch should have been 87% by now. After that intense training, Georges thought it would be best for Mitch to go ride the Lommel sand track with a bike that was straight out of the crate. Mitch was not even allowed to put the front fender on! Georges said that is how they did it back in the day and if Mitch can ride to 93.4% of his total speed, Georges will give him the kill switch clamp to put on. Next week, the duo will attempt to race side-car in Transylvania.

I am kidding everybody … just trying to get some laughs … please don't hurt me if I go to Moncton.

[Ed note: Brett Dailey promises to shave Matthes' head when Cooke wins an MX1 overall this summer.]

This weekend is the first round of the AMA nationals and I will be there checking it out for you guys. If I get lucky, I'm supposed to help out with the Racer X webcast. This should be a lot of fun as we can be a bit more off-the-cuff than the SX broadcasts. The weather is supposed to be great and the track is good for spectating. Look for Stewie to walk away with this, and yes I know RC will be there. In the Lites class, I would bet that it will be a battle between the PC boys and Josh Grant. I predict Canadian hero Dusty Klatt will go 12-9 for 9th overall.

And now, announcing the bike that our factory riders will have to race! Just kidding...

photo: Steve Matthes

Here is the legendary Chinese "Tornado" that the great David Pingree rode at the Glen Helen National a few years back. Greg Primm managed to secure this "classic" for his museum. This is a hilarious story that was well written by former factory rider Pingree. He attempted to race the Tornado, but the bike couldn't make it up the hills and you can see that Pro Circuit just welded a silencer to the mid-pipe. The footpegs look like toothpicks and, as a matter of fact, the left one is severely bent. After this story was written, the bike company sent Racer X magazine some very harshly worded letters threatening to sue everybody and everything. This bike has some history for sure, and I would love to read the acid-tongued Ping write a rebuttal about his near-death experience. That witty Ping … boy he sure is a great writer, I love to read his rebuttals.

Dusty Klatt practicing this week at Competitive Edge

photo: James Lissimore

And finally, James Lissimore checks in from sunny California:

Not a lot of news to report this week. Dusty was practicing all week and spent a lot of time working on starts. Hopefully it pays off this weekend. We're leaving for Hangtown in an hour and we’ll make the drive up there in the Sprinter van. Hopefully he'll have some good luck this weekend. I talked to Pat yesterday and Brady Sheren is in for Hangtown, they were leaving last night. Howie Spencer left Riverside yesterday with Uncle Mike so there should be some good Canadian representation at the race. Hopefully Howie and Brady can make the motos, it would be pretty cool to have a bunch of Canadians out there on Sunday. I noticed on mxforum.com that Simon Homans is pre-entered for Hangtown so I’ll scour the pits once I get there and see if I can find him.
.

 

See you at the ... golf course?