Round 2 Castrol Raceway, Edmonton AB

Round 2 Castrol Raceway, Edmonton AB This past Sunday marked round 2 of the CMRC Monster Energy Motocross Nationals in Canada and the weather couldn't have been better for the event! Gopher Dunes riders Liam O'Farrell and Josh Koncir were both feeling relaxed and confident going into the day after some first round jitters. Practice/qualifying went well for both riders as Liam was 4th fastest in practice 1 and 9th in practice 2. Josh was able to qualify for his first MX1 National in around 30th. Moto 1 began with Colton Facciotti getting the holeshot and Liam not far behind in forth place. "I just rode very tight on the bike in that first moto which caused me to make mistakes and miss my lines, which allowed a couple guys to get by me" comments Liam on his first moto. By the end of the moto Liam lost three spots, which gave him a 7th place finish. Josh crossed the line in 30th place. Liam felt good going into moto 2 as the track had gotten very rough and rutted out, which is where Liam feels he excels. However, The first turn saw both Gopher Dunes riders hit the ground, along with about 5 other riders. Liam was able to re fire his bike quickly and sat in 32nd place at the end of the first lap. Charging through the pack, Liam was able to pass riders one by one to work his way back into the top 10, giving him an 8th overall on the day. Josh was able to manage a 34th after another fall midway through the moto giving him a 34th overall. After 2 of the 9 rounds are complete Liam is currently sitting 8th place in points which he is happy with, but feels he can be better than that in the weeks to come. " I feel I can be a top 5 rider and I am also looking forward to heading back towards the east to the tracks that I am more familiar with" added Liam. "Also I just wanted to send a shout out to Pat Carroll, Dwayne Stadey, Wayne Carroll, and Gary Koncir for helping get to the races." To know more about Team Gopher Dunes Racing throughout the summer or for more info about Gopher Dunes go to www.gopherdunes.com <http://www.gopherdunes.com/> Team Gopher Dunes Racing would like to thank its sponsors: Factory Connection, Bondi Engines, Partners in Power, Stadey's, Koncir.ca, Suzuki, Shift, Pirelli, Wiseco,  Maxima, Yoshimura, Ogio, SSR, Snap-On, Spy, Limenine, Tag, Magnum MX, and Alpinestars. 

Round 1 Whispering Pines

Round 1 Whispering Pines Team Gopher Dunes Suzuki rider Liam O'Farrell started off the season of the Canadian Motocross National season with a solid day in Kamloops. In the first moto Liam jumped out of the gate to a third place start on his Bondi powered RM-Z 450. While holding onto a top 5 position, a crash and stalled bike dropped Liam outside the top 15, however he was able to recover back to 11th by the end of the 30 minute plus two lap moto. The second moto started with a near holeshot just before Liam's front end washed out which left him on the ground and in 40th place in turn one. Liam once again used his excellent conditioning to charge through the pack and made it into the top 10 by the checkers. His 11-9 moto score gave him 11th overall on the day. "I'm happy with my riding this weekend, however I would like to have had better results. I feel that I was top five speed this weekend," stated Liam. "That's where I want to be next weekend, at the front!" To know more about Liam's racing throughout the summer or for more info about Gopher Dunes go to www.gopherdunes.com  Team Gopher Dunes Racing would like to thank its sponsors: Suzuki, Factory Connection, Partners in Power, Stadey's, Koncir.ca, Shift, Pirelli, Wiseco, Bondi Engines, Maxima, Yoshimura, Ogio, SSR, Snap-On, Spy, Tag, Magnum MX, Limenine, and Alpinestars.   

RIDER UPDATE::Nadia Samer

Greetings! Just thought I'd send over a link to some photos from the shoot I did for Cooler Magazine 2 months ago on "Sled-Skiing" with Claire Hughes and Beanie Milne-Home. This photo gallery has most of the B-roll images that aren't being used in the actual article. Photo Gallery: http://www.delaneyzayac.com/uploads/CoolerIceCap/index.html Cooler Magazine link: http://cooler.mpora.com/ Pretty happy with how things turned out, it was a pretty full day! I'm just shooting and filming as much as possible, the snow here is AMAZING right now! Should be a good long season!    Nadia Samer    

CGRT READY FOR 2010

April 7, 2010    CGRT READY FOR 2010    Spring has sprung and along with it comes a much anticipated racing season for the Corner Grass Racing Team (CGRT). The ice racing spikes have been replaced with rubber knobbies and CGRT in excited to start the season with the opening round of the CMA Alberta Harescramble series this coming April 10/11th weekend in Lethbridge, Alberta. The five member team will once again be the official Canadian Husaberg Factory supported team lead by veteran Shane Cuthbertson whom is looking to improve upon his 2009 Canadian Enduro Championship (CEC) 3rd place overall finish in the highly contested E3 category. This year Cuthbertson will be equipped with the all new 2010 Husaberg FX450 and is anxious to get the season underway. He will however have to wait until June for his first taste of dirt as some elected surgeries during the off-season are keeping him away from the bike for now. “I am really chomping at the bit to get riding and it is taking all I have to keep from swinging my leg over the ‘Berg. My main focus this year will be the CEC series; so much so that I have elected not to compete at Erzberg or Romaniacs this year in order to aid in my recovery and training for the series. I am going to be fresh and fit; ready to put my best effort into Canada’s premier series!” CGRT’s mission statement is to ‘provide the foundation to enable a long term focused CANADIAN effort to promote and compete in off-road motorcycle events throughout Canada, USA, and Europe.’ This year the team has really stepped up and will be supporting 16 year old Cole Dobovich in his venture to become one of the elite riders in Canada. Cole has come through the ranks within the local Alberta series and has really shown the drive and desire to improve. “We are really excited to have Cole on board! He is a great kid, has unbelievable family support, and is already a very accomplished motorcycle rider. We really want to give back to our sport and what better way than to lend our resources and experience to a young rider of his caliber” commented team manager Lee Fryberger. Cole will be competing in the Expert class this weekend aboard the 2010 Husaberg FX450, followed by several local Off-Road and MX events in preparation to represent CGRT at the CEC series where he will look to make his mark in the Amateur ‘A’ class. Nick Riewe, Jay McGregor, and Lee Fryberger round out the team and all have plans to compete regularly in both the Alberta provincial series and the Canadian Enduro Championships. In addition to racing, these gentlemen go to extreme efforts in promoting several marquee Canadian events such as the Corner Grass Harescramble (June 26/27) and Canada’s First Extreme Hard Enduro – XTINCTION (August 21/22). CGRT relies heavily on strong partners to help us attain our goals and are proud to announce that Husaberg, A&E Racing, Motovan, Ronwood Enterprises, Lee Built, UFA Petroleum, Limenine Graphics, Opti Lubricants, Rekluse, and Sosa Original have all continued their support for 2010. Two new partners to the team this year are Xtreme Hot Oil Services and Airoh Helmets both of whom we are very excited to have on board.

FMX team rider Reagan Sieg takes on the Big Kahuna

FMX team rider Reagan Sieg's race report:  April 4 2010  Big Kahuna  Kamloops B.C.  This weekend I decided to try something different and made my way to Kamloops for an off-road race called the Big Kahuna.  This is my first time at this race, it is a 2 1/2 hr long race that uses the motocross track and about a 15 km loop through the surrounding terrain.  I showed up to find my fellow Team Kawasaki rider Brock Hoyer there with the Kawasaki rig all set up so managed to find myself a spot in the best factory pits at the track.  I was going into this race to have fun and push my ability and fitness, Brock on the other hand had his sight set on winning.  I was aboard a completely stock 2010 Kawasaki 450 while my teammate was a little more prepared with a 450 set up for off-road built by Leading Edge.  There were close to 20 riders sighed up in the Masters class witch was sure to make for some good racing.  If I had to describe the Track in a couple words they would be DUSTY and ROUGH!  Once the race got under way I had an ok start but got tied up with another rider for a few seconds,  the next 3 laps were very difficult to see and I had to wait for my arms to loosen up but once the did I started to put it together and started passing other riders.  Throughout the race I had no idea of what place I was in we were constantly having to deal with lapped riders in all of the other classes so I had to ride my own race.  The track got insanely rough and line choice was key to making it through this gruelling race.  I had to stop 3 times, twice for gas and once to cut the tape off my hand that balled up in my glove making it hard to hold on.  When the checkers came out i was happy that all my training has paid off and still had enough energy to pull out a slow wheelie down pit row.  I was very surprised to find out that I finished in 4th only seconds behind the guy in front of me.  My teammate Brock did exactly what he set out to do, finishing 1st with a last lap collision with a lapped rider that tore his front calliper right off and managed to limp it around for a win.  All in all I had a great weekend and it was good to see the amount of riders that came out for this event.     Reagan Sieg