By Brett Dailey

Well, since Marc Travers is too busy taking care of his personal needs to send us some sound bytes (he only sends the funny quotes from the dream trio of Brian Koster / Ryan Gauld / Marc Travers anyway), I figured I would give it a go myself. I think I've set the new bar for CMR Bytes, however, I also think it took me longer to type all of this up than the time it took Travers to produce the show. Anyway, it was a great show and here are some highlights below for your reading pleasure.

“How can you leave me on the phone that long?” Ryan Gauld on having to wait through a very long show intro by Marc Travers and Brian Koster.


“I was going to ask the Destroyer Films guys, do we need to fire Danny Brault and just put me in as the host or what’s the deal there?” Gauld on his debut with the Racer X Canada / Destroyer Films Moto Show.


“He says his mustache got caught in the front wheel.” Gauld reciting Ryan Lockhart’s reply on what happened to his results in the second moto at Morden.


“Bad start, no heart.” Koster busting on Lockhart.


“We’re going from acquaintances to semi-buddies right now.” Gauld on hanging out with Racer X Canada's editor, Danny Brault.


“You wouldn’t believe how fast that big bastard can go on a little bike.” Gauld on picking Kyle Keast for Team Canada’s MX2 rider for the MXoN. “The cool thing about it is that he would probably carry the bike on the plane like it’s a carry on bag.”


“I’ve had lappers cost me a lot of contingency money over the years.” Koster after explaining that “a good lapper knows they’re coming and gets the hell out of the way.”


“We are going on SportsNet and the first race will be Saturday July 12^th and it will run for nine weeks straight.” Travers on the SportsNet schedule for the 2008 Monster Energy Motocross Nationals.


“You never know what you can get away with when you’ve got Monster. You can usually bribe it for just about anything.” Monster Energy's Tucker Hibbert on carrying an extra stash of Monster with him at all times.


“I passed both of those guys [Aaron Harvey and Kyle Beaton] for the lead on the same lap and I think it was just a combination of getting roosted too much—and getting tired of that—and just wanting to get out front. I think the roost was a little bit of extra motivation to get the job done.” Hibbert on the heavy roost at Morden.


“I like the track [Moto Valley Raceway in Regina] and I think it’s a track that I’ll be able to do well at and just try to prepare as best we can this week and be ready for next weekend.” Hibbert on his outlook for this weekend’s national in Regina.


“I’m good friends with Andrew Short, who is number 29 in the AMA series. I sent him a text message this morning joking that the 29 is a good luck number for me and I wanted to buy it from him so I’m going to stand by on that one and see if I can wrap up the 29 for the States.” Hibbert on running “the 29” here in Canada this year.


“Teddy Maier was probably the number one guy that I thought would put up a challenge. I’ve raced against him a little bit here and there; not a lot, but I know he’s pretty strong. I raced with Eric Nye a lot last year and [Kyle] Beaton so I knew those guys were going to be strong but I also know their weaknesses…” Hibbert on his early expectations for the competition here in Canada.


“You know who impressed me this weekend was Jeremy Medaglia. I saw him getting second in the first moto so that was pretty cool. I remember watching him last year a little bit and he made some pretty big improvements this year.” Hibbert on rookie, Jeremy Medaglia.


“We always stayed open, kept building suspension and stuff and now we’re into a new building and things are starting to look up.” Factory Connection Canada’s Mike Haist on rebuilding his business after a major fire ripped through his facility in March.


“As fast as we’re going now, the scary part of it is—in our suspension universe—that we’re not even close to being where we’re going to get to. I see lots of future in suspension. The bikes are going to get that much better, the speeds are going to continue to increase, tracks are going to get tougher. We’re not even close to slowing down and that’s almost scarier than where we’re at today.” Haist on the increasing need for suspension technology.


“I’ve got curry coming out of my corn hole right now.” Rick "Hammertime" Hamer-Jackson on his visit to a fine Indian restaurant before calling in.


“We’ll do whatever we have to do to get people to tune into the Pink Palace. If people are coming in, then they’ve got an APB on the Canadian series one way or the other. If I have to be the prick and the sounding board to get everyone to pay attention, I’ll be the guy, I’ll be the scapegoat.” Hamer-Jackson on the controversial and entertaining mxforum.com message board.


“Whether it's [Kyle] Beaton or [Jeremy] Medaglia, it’s just going to be nice to see some new blood.” Hamer-Jackson on his opinion for Team Canada 2008.


“I think it’s just amazing that we’re even discussing the name Jeremy Medaglia right now. I mean the kid is 18 years old and he’s putting in motos like he’s doing right now. Hats off to him.” Hamer-Jackson on considering Jeremy Medaglia for Team Canada.


“Here’s my take on mxforum: I like mxforum because I can appreciate the fact that people can come and say whatever they want; it’s opinion based but I just can’t get over the negativity, honest to God, it goes against every grain of my soul. Everybody is so @#$%^ negative all the time and so aggressive, I just can’t take it. I like the concept, I just can’t handle the negativity sometimes. That’s all; that’s just me.” Travers on his view of mxforum.


“The fact that you just dropped an F-bomb there makes me realize that you really do feel that way. I like to hear that. Everybody’s got their opinion and that negative vibe that’s kind of mixed with the positive vibe, those are the two things that create interest, you know? So if you don’t have the naysayers, you’re not going to have the people on there wasting their time and voicing their positive opinion. It’s not a big stroke job all the way around. A little bit of a mix of everything is what’s created a pretty good site that people can go to and pay attention to.” Hamer-Jackson on balancing the negative and positive opinions on the board.


“Some guys act like they are too cool for school, but they watch the shows—they would never admit it or whatever but—it’s just such a mix of egos in our sport. Like we know the biggest spodes in the world that are frickin elbows down but they talk like they are frickin the next Jeremy McGrath. So there’s so many posers. And to answer your question, do I mxforum? Well, my world is that big, I don’t even have time to take care of my personal needs, let alone watching stuff and go on television and watching stuff.” Koster on why he doesn't spend much time on the computer.


“I’d take [Kyle] Beaton over [Jeremy] Medaglia because he’s older and I was there [at the MXoN] when Colton [Facciotti] was there and he was 18 and mentally … his riding ability, no problem … but mentally, you’re 18 years old, right? Kyle’s a little bit older, he’s been to Europe a few times, that’s a huge factor. The crowd ... I don’t know if you guys have been—the American race doesn’t count, not the same thing—the crowd is over the top. It is beyond anything you could imagine. Imagine a carnival ... take a carnival, like the circus, Ringling Bros circus, put a motocross track in it, add Cirque du Soleil, add like every freak you’ve ever seen in the world, get them all drunk, get supermodels and roll them all in there and add the fastest motocross racers in the world. It’s terrible.” Darren Pilling's explanation of the atmosphere at the MXoN.


“Look at his coaches man, you’re with Blair [Morgan] and JSR. How are you not going to be amazing?” Pilling on Facciotti’s environment under the Blackfoot tent.


“I wanted to try to talk to Pillow about a lot of those guys talking shit can’t even shift their way out of neutral so everyone’s like frickin six inches taller and 50 pounds heavier behind the laptop.” Koster on the clientele at mxforum.


“I felt awesome. Actually, on Saturday, for the open practice, I had an awesome lap time but those guys picked it up on Sunday for sure. I think I did a 2:05 on Saturday and in that second moto, Colt and Medaglia were doing 2:03’s so they were on the gas.” Jimmy Nelson offering some accolades to Facciotti and Medaglia. 


“Colton has awesome throttle control too; he rides the thing so good. It was good because I got to go down to Georgia with him and JSR before the series so I got to ride with him and Blair almost every day for about two months.” Nelson on transitioning from a 250F to a 450F. 


“Colt is just riding awesome this year man, my hat’s off to him. Even when we were down there it was apparent that he was going to be on the gas this year for sure.” Nelson with more compliments for his teammate, and competitor, Colton Facciotti. Is Jimmy Nelson not the nicest guy in motocross? No wonder Blackfoot's Dean Thompson loves him.


“He [Aron Harvey] was doing all of the amateur nationals and I was doing the Canadian stuff for the last couple of years so, I just knew that he was … I mean he was racing with [Austin] Stroupe and [Trey] Canard and [Nico] Izzi and those guys for the last couple of years and been right there with those guys so I knew he was fast and I just tried to help him out for sure. It’s not very often that we get so many fast guys from up here in Nevada so anything I can help with is good." Nelson on helping his fellow Nevada neighbour get an opportunity on the Blackfoot team.


"I’ve always done well there [Moto Valley Raceway in Regina]. I think that’s the only round I won both motos at last year. I had some bad luck at the rest of the rounds but yeah, I love that place. It’s an awesome track, good for passing, awesome for racing. They always prep it really well, water it good in the morning so you get a lot of lines. I think it should be good.” Nelson with props for the Regina facility. 


“What a great addition he [Jimmy Nelson] has been to our series. When we think about some of the young Americans who have come up and just how many great guys have come up and Jimmy is just a go-for-broke [rider]. He reminds me of the Teddy Maier style, just all or nothing, there’s no smiles for second.” Koster on what Jimmy Nelson has added to the Canadian series over the years. 


If you missed the show, or just want to confirm that Koster really said,"Like we know the biggest spodes in the world that are frickin elbows down but they talk like they are frickin the next Jeremy McGrath." you can listed to the show #4 archive right here. Until next week...