Cool People

I will catch myself in a slump where I question what is going on? Where is my flow? The enthusiasm! The pep in my step and the sparkle in my eye. As I get to know myself better over the years and building a more intuitive connection inside, the two key culprits are a disconnection with what makes me, me! Getting out in the mountains, breathing that fresh air and getting two wheels or snow under my feet! Secondly, a lack of connection with my community. A big contributor to my peace is the people around me. The ones that ground me, motivate me, make me laugh, pull on my heart strings and keep me accountable.

I always found a great community with racing and the local track. We’re all there for the same purpose and some of us connect through that and in turn maybe even learn a little bit about each other along the way.

I have a few stories where I had felt the connection with my community. The first is when I had felt like I didn’t have much of a place in the community! But I will never forget the first time I spent time in Montreal, it was a year where there was a supercross being held at the Olympic facility, but I wasn’t racing due to injury. I came to support my team and teammates and experience an iconic race that had been shut down for so many years. It was cool to see heavy hitters like Malcolm Stewart, Phil Nicoletti, RJ Hampshire show up. I will never forget how crazy the crowd went for Malcolm Stewart but they weren’t that excited for their own hometown boy Kaven Benoit. Strange… Anyhow, the event was super cool and turned to be quite a success. At this point in time, when I raced a lot of these guys like T-Dags, Cole Thompson, or Colton Faccioti, my presence around them on the track was that of respect and “all hail the mighty...” instead of, “I am going to go ass over tea-kettle to beat you”. These guys were up on my pedestal, the greats of the great. For some time, I was star struck by my heroes which made me incredibly awkward around them off the track.

I will never forget one of the times where I realized that just like me, the rest of them were all a bunch of nerds having a good time riding bikes and it brought me a sense of comfort that I could be myself in this little world of castaways.

After the race, we all decided to hit the town and cap off a good weekend before we venture off to the next one. If you have been to Montreal, you know the town is its own breed of interesting and of course like a bunch of “revved up” and testosterone filled young men, we wanted to hit one of the infamous Montreal strip clubs. I was in a crowd of fellas that I had known but never got to really know that well, so I was a typical stiff, cool guy around them that needed more than a few pints to loosen up and have a good time. Its weird hanging out with the guys that you’re trying to beat every weekend yet you’re going out for a night that you know very well is going to ruin you the next day!

We tucked into this underground club that had your big bouncer sizing you up to let you in. Big Jean didn’t speak a lick of English but could tell we were there just to see a pair of headlights, so no trouble from us and we were in. Strip clubs were always quite alluring to me as I had no game whatsoever growing up and the only luck I had back in my earlier adulthood to get close to women was a $10 cover. I will never forget one of my first loves, gorgeous brunette, high maintenance and quite costly but golly she knew how to draw you in! I had always heard the stories of the places in Montreal, so I was expecting something spectacular, and it did not disappoint. I had been to ones in other towns that were clean cut, regulation and on-the-clock. This place was the Mad Max of risqué establishments. The best part is once I arrived there, I’d seen all the “Big Rig’s” had beaten us to the party. The whole 250 and 450 lineup was stacking up the revenue for this place. It was awesome! It didn’t take me long to breathe out and enjoy myself, everyone with an MRC or AMA license was doing the same. Past 250 Champions were a few chairs down calling the wannabe champs pussies for not taking more shots, my teammate is sprawled out up on stage with a five-dollar bill in his mouth and I’m getting ripped for having my camera out capturing the raunchy entertainment.

We stumbled out of that establishment and onto many more to create many more memories from a great weekend. What I took from it all was that I met many people that night that I had never talked to at the races or even given a wave. We size some of each other up like assholes or uptight, but that night I realized we have a cool crew. Our community is a great group of people, down to earth, can kick back and have a good time. We will go to war against each other but once in a blue moon, go have a couple pints and toss a few loonies! Its all for the love and passion of bikes, a good time and good company.