With the three-week break in the schedule now history, the Monster Energy Canadian Motocross Nationals resume this Sunday at Gopher Dunes in Courtland,Canada.
After the Southwestern Ontario venue joined the national tour lineup in 2005, the country's motocross elite immediately declared Gopher "the toughest track in Canada", and nothing has changed. As its name suggests, Gopher Dunes is all about sand. Lots of it and it's deep!
"It's a very physically and technically demanding track," said CMRC's Mark Stallybrass. "If you're not 100% fit you know after a just a few laps you're not going to have a good day."
With three Sundays of Nationals inactivity, everyone involved is highly anticipating the start of the eastern leg of the series, which is currently being dominated by Monster Energy/Parts Canada/Leading Edge Kawasaki's Brett Metcalfe in MX1 and Austin Politelli in MX2.
The way it looks now, Leading Edge, the defending national championship team in both classes, will be the one to beat in the remaining five rounds of the Nationals. They are also the defending Gopher Dunes winners from last year, with Matt Goerke in MX1 and Teddy Maier in MX2.
For all intents and purposes, right now it looks like that Rockstar Energy/OTSFF/Yamaha Motovan.com's Bobby Kiniry, Red Bull/Royal Distributing/Fox/KTM's Tyler Medaglia and MX101 Yamaha's Jeremy Medaglia are about the only candidates capable of derailing the Australian Metcalfe in the MX1 points chase.
And of course there is Metcalfe's Leading Edge Kawasaki MX1 teammate Teddy Maier. Maier is the only rider besides Metcalfe and Colton Facciotti to have won a moto so far this season. Maier also won at Gopher Dunes last year in MX2, and he'll want to make that an MX1 victory on Sunday.
Not surprisingly, all of the above are currently sitting top-five in the MX1 points ranking.
With the return of Red Bull/Royal Distributing/Fox/KTM's Dusty Klatt to action this Sunday, Metcalfe will have another podium contender to deal with. But regardless of how Klatt, who has just recovered from a pre-season knee injury, fares, he will not be in a position to claim the title this year.
"I'm feeling good so I'm going to go for it. I just want to keep healthy and have some fun. It will be good to be racing with everyone and hopefully get that bike back up on the box," Klatt said.
