Text and Photos by Dan Paris

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!

What would TransCan be without a bunch of tired and muddy kids?

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!

Queen Jolene on the podium before she became a TV star

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.

Paul Carpenter heads up the American invasion of Walton

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…

JSR is one of the Legends signed up this year

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!

The Walton TransCan is the melting pot of motocross