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It’s
no secret that the Walton TransCan is the biggest show in Canadian
Motocross. Each year riders from across Canada, the U.S and abroad make
the trek to tiny Walton, Ontario. While a huge scale event like
TransCan feeds itself to some degree, you need something tasty to get
them in the door in the first place and to keep them hungry for more.
The motocross track at Chris Lee’s farm is a slice of moto-pie fit for
a king, but Walton is more than simply being a great place to race.
It’s Canada’s motocross melting pot.
The
social camaraderie at Walton is awesome. I mean, where else in Canada
can you bench race around a campfire with someone from the other side
of the country? Or from the other side of the World even? With that in
mind I took a look at the breakdown of Walton TransCan entries for 2009.
The lion’s share of racers, naturally, comes from South Western Ontario. I guess that makes sense, since most people in Canada are from SWO…
Next
on the list is Quebec, which is always enthusiastic about any type of
motor-vehicle racing. Eastern Ontario hangs in third, closely followed
by a large batch of riders making the cross-country trek from Alberta.
The Maritimes send in about half the number of riders that Alberta
does, surprisingly beating out Central Ontario. In fact, there are
nearly as many riders from the B.C mainland as there are from Central
Ontario, and more than from Northern Ontario. Manitoba and Saskatchewan
both kick in a sizable number of racers, which when combined are more
than the entries from Northern Ontario. I don’t know how those stats
jive with motorcycle sales in general, but for what it’s worth it
creates an interesting mix of Canadiana when wandering through the
massive Walton Amateur pits!
I
dug deeper in an attempt to break down my cross-section further. I
found that the 2009 Walton TransCan has 20 confirmed entries in the
four to six-year-old pee-wee class. At the other end of the scale we
have 33 confirmed entries in the plus-40 class. If you like motocross
girls (and who doesn’t?) there are a whopping 42 of them entered in the
Ladies class!
Lets
work our way through some more classes with huge numbers, starting with
the 80cc 7-11 class with 53 confirmed entries. Super Mini? Try 61
confirmed. The MX3 GP-Junior class, with 88, is bigger yet, but the
biggest single class at Walton is… (Drum roll, please) MX2 125-Junior.
There are 98 confirmed entries in that class, which is pretty sick when
you think about it. The Walton TransCan is huge, no doubt about it.
There
are a large number of racers making the trek to Walton from the U.S,
with Michigan, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York and the North-East
States all well represented. Former MX1 National Champion Paul
Carpenter may be the current leader of the American Pro brigade, but
Walton is also a breeding ground for future American motocross Pros. In
the past guys like Nick Wey, Josh Woods, Travis Pastrana and Jason
Lawrence all raced TransCan as amateurs.
Now
go further South. Nope. Keep going, like about as far South as you can
get. Michael Kok, of the Republic of South Africa, is racing the Youth
Class at Walton this year. That’s gotta’ be good for a ‘longest
distance travelled’ award…
Chris
Lee also tells me the Vet class has a slew of fast guys entered this
year, including Jean Sebastien Roy, Marco Dube, Josh Woods and of
course Ryan Gauld.
The
Walton TransCan truly is the Canadian motocross melting pot. It’s a
place where families from across the country can meet fellow
enthusiasts from just about everywhere. It’s a once a year pilgrimage
that is part family reunion and part race. That, more than anything
else, is what makes the Walton TransCan great!
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