By Danny Brault

Photos: Jason T. Griffiths and Allison Kennedy

The 2005 NAPA Montreal Supercross is set to kick-off this weekend at Olympic Stadium for its 29^th year, and that means fans are guaranteed two things: The best indoor riders in Canada and the hottest girls—arguably—in Canada.

    The Montreal SX is a special event for fans—especially Quebec fans—they get to watch Canada’s best square off with a handful of U.S. riders, are treated to an all-Canadian 125 class with our best up-and-coming riders, Autocross, ATVs and some world-class trophy girls on the sidelines. It’s a special event for riders too, as they have an opportunity to race a world-class event, without world-class pressure. Don’t confuse this with a lack of effort. JSR, Blair Morgan, Marco Dubé and Doug DeHaan will be trying their darndest to win, but they don’t feel the same pressure that they would if they were chasing a national championship. The Montreal event provides a relaxing atmosphere for the riders, and actually gives them a chance to put on a better show because they aren’t so wound up. Even though there is no series title at stake, there is still huge prestige to being a Montreal Supercross champ.

     The event took a step forward last year when Dirt Wurx built the track, and for 2005, they will once again be designing the Montreal course.

    “Dirt Wurx is building it and it’s a Dirt Wurx layout. Last year they were new to the game and we designed it together because they were not familiar with the constraints of building a car track, an ATV track, a supercross track and a freestyle track together,” said Montreal SX promoter Pierre Corbeil.

    This year’s track will feature a slightly more technical layout, but Corbeil has asked Dirt Wurx to tone down the rockers section, it was too difficult for even the best riders last year. He also plans to give the riders more practice time.

     “With the Friday practice, we would give each rider 15 minutes of practice. Now if we’re forced to cancel Friday practice, we still will give one extra practice on Saturday, for at least 35 minutes of track time, which is better than last year. They only had 20 minutes of practice last year, and we agreed that’s not enough. It’s not enough for a rider who hasn’t rode supercross, especially if you have a track built by Dirt Wurx and they have Ricky Carmichael on their mind. Sure we tell them, ‘No, don’t tune it for Ricky, tune it for… Blair Morgan, [laughs]’” said Corbeil.

     However, with the Quebec labour strike in the works, Corbeil may have to cancel Friday’s program.

     “We had huge plans of giving riders plenty of track time on Friday, but now there might be a strike with the stadium employees—well it’s not the stadium employees it’s the Quebec civil servants strike. I won’t know until tomorrow what’s happening. It’s a major pain in the neck, we have to work on two scenarios at the same time.”

Another change to this year’s event is how riders will qualify for the main events. Instead of going through heats, semis and LCQs, 125 riders will be selected by lap times; the 250 class will still have qualifiers.

    “All your laps are timed and your fastest lap time is your time. We keep the fastest 25 guys for the 125 class and the 40 fastest guys for the 250 class,” says Corbeil. “If we run qualifiers, a guy can have bad luck, could fall, could be pushed off the track by somebody, so there is room for error. With lap times, if you can’t have one fast lap time—you don’t belong there.”

    When questioned what would be the protocol if two riders, or several, set the same lap time, Corbeil assured that the technology goes to the thousandth of a second and he would be very surprised if two riders set the exact same time.

2004 Montreal SX Review