Frid'Eh Update:Presented by Royal Distributing
OCTOBER 26, 2007
Worrying is just a waste a time, isn’t it? But then why can’t we (or at
least I) resist the need to worry? For the past month, I’ve been
stressing out big time as we worked towards the 2008 Racer X Canada
Shootout. While the idea sounds simple—get riders to ride new dirt
bikes—and, really, who stresses out about riding brand new motorcycles,
but the whole project takes a lot of effort, planning and organization.
Fortunately, we have a great crew here at RXC that helped with every
aspect of the shootout. So with two weeks before the shootout,
we had the latest `08 garb for all the testers, a porta-john,
photographers, full support from the manufacturers, and the most
important piece of the puzzle, a test facility. Kyle Carruthers and his
family went above and beyond, spending weeks grooming their Castillo
Ranch-like track, cutting acres upon acres of grass, and even helping
put up banners and haybales to add a little colour to the track.
My stress level started to lower, but then it quickly rose again when I
woke up Tuesday morning to pouring rain. For once, Mr. Weatherman was
right, and we watched, painfully, as rain fell all day long. Our only
option was to cancel and try to run it all in one day on Wednesday.
It was difficult to sleep Tuesday night, but fortunately, we awoke to
dry skies and Kyle called me and said that the track was good to go.
While the morning was a little hectic, as we raced to apply number
plate decals, string up banners, and unload the bikes, everything went
better than expected. Even Machine Racing’s John Nelson, who brought
out the CRF250 and 450, was satisfied with the day, which in itself is
testament to how well the shootout went.
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Pierce Chamberlain spurs on McCullough as Burke holds the lead in the KTM144 vs CRF250 battle. |
The highlight of the day came when Rob “Go ahead, feel my biceps”
McCullough and Jason Burke had a three lap moto. Nelson put down $20 on
the race, which had Rob on a CRF250 and Burke on the KTM 144 SX. The
two were pretty close throughout the moto, but Burke ended up taking
the win and $20. Rob regained his pride after challenging Jay to a log
throwing contest, push-up competition, and 100-metre dash. I was
waiting for Rob to bet that he could lift a mountain.
All in all, the day went awesome. A big thanks goes out to the
manufacturers, who really stepped things up this year and had talented
tech support on hand, the test riders, the RXC crew, Mandy Hadenko for
the coffees and lunch, and especially the Carruthers family and their
friends who made sure every detail was covered. Stay tuned next week
for the first report from the 2008 RXC Shootout!
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Danny Brault's hard work was rewarded with an afternoon on the 2008 bikes. |
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Kyle Keast, Pierce Chamberlain and Kyle Carruthers relax after a hard day of testing. |
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A huge thanks to the manufacturers who came out in full force to offer trackside support to the test riders...and I'm pretty sure most of the techs found time to ride the Carruthers' sweet track. |
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Track owner and our very gracious host, Steve Carruthers, finally got to put in a few laps on the KTM 144SX at the end of the day. |
RDS:
November 7 @ 8pm
November 10 @ 11pm
November 14 @ 3pm
TSN:
November 3 @ 2pm
Speaking of the Montreal SX, the Destroyer Films guys sent along this cool link to a photo report from the premiere of the DVD, This Is It.
Nex-Trax’ Tony Cording checked in this week with an update on some of the happenings in the Canadian AX Champsionships …
We’re very excited for this year’s Canadian AX Championships! SixSixOne put up a cash grand prize of Six Hundred and Sixty One dollars to the top rider in the MX1 final at Chilliwack on Saturday November 10. But SixSixOne has not forgotten the mid-pack amateur rider; they will also be awarding a $66.00 gift certificate to one sixth-place finisher in an amateur class to be selected on each of the 8 arenacross race nights.
Motovan and Holeshot have also stepped up. Motovan and Holeshot will be donating 10 ZOX helmets to race winners throughout the series.
Denny's and Holeshot will also be working together to bring you to the breakfast table. Holeshot will be giving out Denny's two-for-one breakfast coupons throughout the entire Arenacross race series and beyond. Pick these up at the ticket booth or at sign up.
Daytona Motorsports and Rob Goth have a nice surprise for fans at the November 10 Arenacross races - wait and see, and keep your eyes and ears open. Someone is going to walk away a winner!
Now that we have done the preliminary legwork on the arenacross series, we can give some attention to other matters. Expanding the series to other provinces remains high on our agenda, especially Peterborough, Winnipeg and Grande Prairie. These are the places that have contacted us so far, which puts us ahead of the game. I am about to get back in touch with major MX dealers in Ontario to follow up on my visit in August.
One odd thing was that I couldn't get through the front door of 3 of the major dealers, no response and no interest, even after I had sent off 3 letters with lots of information, and made 3 phone calls for appointments. Significantly, I didn't ask for any money, support, nothing—only the chance to chat. No doubt it was because it was showtime for these manufacturers, who shall remain nameless. However, if AX is to fly, there has to be a show of interest from the manufacturers.
Thanks for the AX update, Tony! I am sad here to there’s a lack of interest in a Canadian AX series. Again, without the WSXGP rounds, we need something to fill our uneventful winter. Tony has already brought up some good ideas about how the motorcycle community can benefit from a winter series; dealers will experience better parts and bike sales, people will buy bikes earlier, fans will have something to watch for, and for us media, we’ll have some Canadian racing to cover!
The final round of the CMRC Fox Fall High Point Series takes place this Sunday at Gopher Dunes in Courtland, Ontario. Unfortunately, I won’t be able to take it to Derek Schuster this weekend, but if any is interested in a fun, laid back race before selling the bike or draining the oil, then head down to the Dunes and get in one final race. For more info, try the www.gopherdunes.com or www.cmrcracing.com websites.
One of RXC’s brightest photographers, James Lissimore, has started up his own website where people can check out his best work (there’s lots of it!). Visit www.lissimorephoto.com to scroll through some of the best Canadian (and American) moto-photos out there!
While the moto world is pretty quiet at the moment, there’s a crop of Canadian riders packing their gear bags to head across the pond for the Sheffield Supercross next weekend, November 3. The first round of the Future West ACU British Supercross Championships has JSR, Colton Facciotti, Kyle Beaton, Ryan Lockhart and Doug DeHaan squaring off against the likes of Mike Brown, Jeff Alessi, Jason Thomas, Gordon Crockard and Carl Nunn. For more information on the Sheffield SX visit www.fwsx.com
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Dirt TV released Erzberg Eh! A new DVD featuring Marty Halmazna at the Erzberg Rodeo. |
Canada’s newest tough guy, Marty Halmazna, along with Dirt TV associate
producer Doug Raffan, have released a new full-length documentary
featuring Halmazna and the Erzberg Rodeo. You can check out more about
the documentary, Erzberg Eh!, by visiting www.dirttv.ca
Steve Matthes checked in with some reader mail:
Here at the Racer X Canada U.S. Office (my house in Vegas) we get alot of emails about a lot of different things. Here is one that was sent to me during the 2007 Rockstar Energy Drink US Open telecast-
Steve,
Please, please, please do an Observations from My Couch on CBS' broadcast
of the U.S. Open. Good lord, with an hour-and-a-half running time and
two nights of racing to cover, I think I saw about 20 minutes of actual
racing and 70 minutes of ads for next years Open. Am I crazy or did
they not even show Friday night's main event?
Keep up the good work,
Rocky
Thanks Rocky,
I agree that the telecast was a "Hey mom, you have to
take me to Supercross next year so I can get autographs, t-shirts shot
at me with a cannon and big boobed girls giving me stuff" shill. But
I'm ok with that, because you know what? Live Nation bought that time
on CBS and even though I've never bought time on a major network, I'm
sure its expensive. They have the right to promote Supercross the way
they see fit, they did have alot of racing also, in fact, a very
informal % of what we all saw was 50/50 racing and pit shots and if you
think about it, thats probably what an average fan sees in the day.
Thanks for writing and say hi to Adrian for me.
Hey Steve,
Great work on all the " Observations" this season past. Ihope
to see it continue. Just a couple items to weigh in on. 1st off the
Canucks at the USDN were awesome, even saw your sarcastic self pit
cruisin by. The boys from Blackfoot were very gracious and took a lot
of time for a bunch of countrymen.2nd is Grant Langston the most under
apreciated nat champ of all time or is it justme? We were having dinner
at the Outback and he stopped by and shot the poop for over ten
mins,asking about the guys up north,Lockhart etc. Super cool low key
guy. 3rd Supercross only?? only the big #2 deserved(earned) that right.
I truly think #22 is showing his true (me me me) colours as a self
centered wanker with no respect for the sport or the fans of true
motocross.. Wow that felt good!!
Keep up the columns, thanks for the laughs
Dan.
Thanks Dan for the compliments and for writing in.
The Blackfoot guys
and myself have a love/hate thing going on for sure. They love to hate
me! Well, not really but I have ticked some guys off there for sure but
thats all water under the bridge right Deano? I really think that the
BF boys deserve alot of credit for the MXDN effort, they spent a ton of
money (and although its great we had T-shirt sales, trust me when I say
they didnt cover it)and showed up and didnt look out of place amoung
the world's best teams. They represented the country well, and I think
its great. They didnt half-ass anything, they even put up the privacy
screens on cue! (Sorry Dean, I couldn't resist.)
I agree that GL8 is a great guy, he is a reporters dream also.
Very candid and honest about everything in the sport. I was at KTM when
he first came over and he hasn't changed a bit. Good guy for sure. As
far as 22 is concerned, has there ever been more of a polarizing rider
then him? You are either a huge fan of his or you hate him. I hate to
steal the most overused sports cliche right now, but he is what he is.
CR has always been candid like GL, it's just that his feelings don't
always match up to what the fans want to hear. I like Chad, him and I
hung for an hour at the MXDN just shooting the breeze, and he's a nice
guy. As a media member, I also appreciate his "evil" Chad Reed persona
lately, makes for good writing!
As always, drop me a line at matthes@racerxcanada.com and let me know what you think about really anything.
Thanks Steve!
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Happy Birthday Dawn! Dawn (right) celebrates Jolene Van Vugt's long awaited Walton win, with JVV and Kristina Sundal. |
Finally, the RXC crew would like to wish a very happy birthday to our art director, Dawn McClintock. Dawn (along with our creative director Dan O'Shea) is responsible for the sweet feature layouts you see in every issue of RXC. She's also become quite the moto head over the last few years. Anyone who would walk the hills at the Budds Creek MXoN while six months pregnant has to love the sport (or fly to Matterly Basin solo). If you see Dawn with her camera at the Dunes on Sunday, buy her a hot chocolate. She deserves it!
Our last tidbit for the update is a link we strongly reccomend spending nine minutes of your Friday afternoon on. Enjoy...
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