As far as racing goes this weekend, we will see the return of the Tampere Supercross in Finland, which will be celebrating its 10th anniversary. The event is like a homecoming for our friend Harri Kullas, who was born in next-door Estonia but moved to Finland as a child, and now has joint citizenship—he's ridden for both Estonia and Finland multiple times at the Monster Energy FIM Motocross of Nations. Harri is working on a deal to race full-time in the U.S. this coming season following his impressive showings at the SuperMotocross World Championship (SMX), where he finished 13th in the final 450SMX results. Also set to race this weekend at the Tampere SX are the aforementioned Josh Hill, Cade Clason, Tristan Lane, Adam Chatfield, and more. The whole race weekend will be run alongside the Off-Road Expo, making this one of the biggest weekends of the year for the Finnish moto industry. Not sure if there will be any live streaming but you can follow along on their Facebook page.

The Fox Australian Supercross Championship is off this weekend but returns next weekend in Adelaide, and of course there's also the 41st Paris Supercross in France next weekend as well (November 16 and 17). (And for more on the third round of the Fox Australian Supercross Championship, read Jason Thomas' breakdown recap) The biggest, oldest and most prestigious international SX of all, Paris has been on the map since 1984, when the event first ran in March—midweek and in between the AMA Supercross races at Daytona and Talladega—and then again late that fall, where the race has remained ever since. Both the King and Prince of Paris will be on hand as Jett Lawrence returns to defending his 450 title and his Honda HRC Progressive teammate Jo Shimoda will defend his crown in the 250 class. Also on hand will be Hunter Lawrence, Cooper Webb (debuting his new Fly Racing gear), Malcolm Stewart, Dylan Ferrandis, and more. The race will also be a homecoming of sorts for both Ferrandis and Tom Vialle, who returns this time as a 2024 250SX East Region Champion.

The Lake Elsinore Grand Prix out in California was also supposed to be happening this weekend, but it was suddenly canceled in what has been a very confusing story that actually deserves its own Racerhead section, so let's go there...

The Lake Elsinore Saga (DC)

Lake Elsinore in Southern California has long been associated with dirt bikes. There is a large public riding facility there, and it even hosted a couple of rounds of the AMA Pro Motocross Championship about a dozen years ago. But it's best known for the Lake Elsinore Grand Prix, which was featured in Bruce Brown's film On Any Sunday, featuring Malcolm Smith and the actor Steve McQueen (riding under the alias Harvey Mushman) participating in the big off-road race. The race itself was the inspiration for Honda toto any call their first true motocross bikes in 1973 the CR250M an Elsinore.

The past few years have not been kind to the Lake Elsinore track (LEMX), as seemingly constant rumors swirled around SoCal that it was closing for good. Earlier this year a terrible tragedy occurred at LEMX when someone on a full-sized motorcycle rode out onto the kid's pee-wee track and fatally struck a 9-year-old girl who was out riding on her 50 (this after he was apparently told to get off the kids' track twice). That seemed to be the beginning of the end. There was one more race weekend set—this coming weekend—for the 56th and final Lake Elsinore Grand Prix, plus the Jeremy McGrath Holeshot King event, which was set for today, and then the place was to be closed for good. Unfortunately, the track operators posted last Sunday that the whole weekend was a no-go due to pending litigation over the death of the young girl.

The whole saga then took a turn for the worse when the Editor-at-Large of Roadracing World (which is located not far from LEMX) named Michael Gougis posted, “An electronic search of the civil cases filed in the Superior Court of California, County of Riverside (where Lake Elsinore is located), revealed no litigation with the name of the deceased child. There were no civil cases with the child’s last name and the name of the track, and the last case with the track’s name was filed in 2017.” 

A follow-up by Roadracing World stated that the LEMX operator contacted them to say that they had been served papers, but a friend of the girl's family posted on the Vital MX Forum that they had not sued anyone, leading to more confusion. 

This past Tuesday it was posted on social media that the upcoming Lake Elsinore Grand Prix had been canceled completely, which led the Mayor of the Lake Elsinore, Steve Manos, to post on Facebook that the city did not know about the sudden closure, and they were not party to any lawsuit involving the girl's family, and that there was no plan to put anything else on the site for the foreseeable future (an Amazon warehouse project had fallen through a couple of years ago). He closed his message with his: "Motocross is part of the DNA of the City of Lake Elsinore. It’s part of the reason we adopted the 'Dream Extreme' motto. Not a good day.... This is a loss for the operator, land owner, City residents, and… most of all… the family for the little girl that lost her life. Just a tragedy all around."

Jeremy McGrath, who like a lot of people growing up in the area spent a lot of time riding at Lake Elsinore, posted on Instagram, "We are extremely disappointed that the 2024 Elsinore GP will be canceled. The landowners cannot come to terms with management. We were blindsided by this information, we just received this notification days ago. We did absolutely everything in our power to make arrangements and proceed with the event. We cannot put our riders in a bad situation or have families traveling to an event that’s not 100% to our standards. The city of Lake Elsinore has nothing to do with this situation, it is strictly the landowners. We will start issuing refunds immediately to those that pre-registered. We apologize, but there was nothing we could do to save the (Lake) Elsinore GP."

McGrath's close friend Lawrence Lewis was helping organize the whole event and posted a similar message on his @elsinore_gp account. The track itself seems to have closed their @lake.elsinore.motorsports.park account.

What a strange, confusing and just plain sad ending to one of the best-known motorcycle events in the history of our sport. 

The whole Lake Elsinore saga was picked up by national news outlets, including CBS News and USA Today.

Off-Season Training (Simon Cudby)

Fox Raceway was busy yesterday as we were doing a photo shoot. In attendance were Monster Energy/Pro Circuit Kawasaki riders Garrett Marchbanks, Seth Hammaker, and Cameron McAdoo, plus schoolboy Vincent Wey and Kawi's test rider Broc Tickle. These riders were still on the main outdoor track for training, before hitting the supercross tracks hard in the next few weeks for testing.

And Jason Weigandt and Jason Thomas just finished up an off-season special edition of SMX Insider:

Dubya USA World Vets (Matthes)

The Dubya USA World Vets at Glen Helen Raceway have come and gone another year and with it, some fun times and hilarious stories for the future. Keefer, Jamie “Darkside” Guida from Vital MX, Phil Nicoletti (who won the +30 class), and I hosted the PulpMX Show on Monday night talking about the ins and outs from the weekend.

Look, this race is huge, and the turnout has riders from all over the world. And the folks at GH have done a better job with everything since I first started going to this race years ago. BUT...and there's always a but, the reason why the post-Vets PulpMX Show is so popular is because people want to hear about all the things that go wrong. From the staging area to the track to the motos moved for no reason to the water hose guy, I've said it before and I'll say it again, with just a LITTLE more money spent, people hire and organization, the World Vets could be SO good. As it is, there's SO many dirt bike riders there, maybe GH figures they don't need to do anything—open the gates and all of us old guys will show up. 

The track featured a really fun layout, and the hills of the Helen always add to the challenge. We had a fun time, head to Pulpmxshow.com to listen to the ups and downs from the weekend that was. 

I'm off to Paris next week and we had Eric Peronnard on the PulpMX Show to talk about that. The Lawrence brothers, Cooper Webb, Malcolm Stewart, Dylan Ferrandis, and more will be there to put on a good show. Jo Shimoda and Tom Vialle will once again line up in SX2. You can watch the race on MXGP-TV.com with Paul Malin calling the action and I'll probably get to slide in there at some point to help out. Always a good time for sure! 

World Vet Weekend (Keefer)

What a time to be alive! Oh, and over the age of 25! Steve, our buddies, Janky Mike, Vaaaag, Darkside, Deebs, Fireman Dave, and I all raced the Dubya USA World Vets last weekend at Glen Helen Raceway, as Steve mentioned, and what a time we had. If you have never experienced the World Vets at Glen Helen, do yourself a favor and go at least one time. The track will beat you up, the start will be a mess, but there will be a thousand like-minded older racers (like yourself) there enjoying bench racing and talking smack to their buddies! It's the only race all year I see a camaraderie of fellow older riders that genuinely love battling it out.

Sure, I witnessed the occasional fight after a moto in the 60 plus novice class but that is just a slight imbalance of some older dude’s testosterone therapy. The World Vets is one of a kind and it's the only time I get to have all of my buddies race on the same track/weekend.

Seeing Steve race Fireman Dave and Vaaag was the highlight of my weekend. Then listening to them bench race as they use words like "wide open," "whip," or even "almost die" had me cracking up! If you want to relive the weekend with us, check out my latest Keefer Tested Podcast or Monday's PulpMX Show where it's all about old dudes and racing motocross! The best shows of the year by far! 

Husqvarna Owns MX2 (DC)

The 2024 turned out to be a pretty good year for Husqvarna, especially over in Europe. Why all of their wins in America came via Rockstar Energy Husqvarna's RJ Hampshire, the '24 Monster Energy 250SX West champion, the white bikes dominated in MX2. Dutch rider Kay de Wolf and his Nestaan Husqvarna teammate from Belgium, Lucas Coenen, went 1-2 in the final MX2 (250) rankings in the FIM World Motocross Championship. They combined to win 17 of the 20 rounds overall, and when the season ended de Wolf won the MX2 class in the '24 FIM Motocross of Nations. The last time Husqvarna won the FIM World Championship in this class goes back 25 years to when Alessio Chiodi won a 125cc two-stroke, when Husqvarna was owned by Cagiva/MV Agusta, long before the brand was purchased by KTM (2013). 

Nestaan Husqvarna factory team manager, Rasmus Jorgensen had the enviable task of balancing everything within the team and between the two riders. Geoff Meyer of MXLarge.com recently spoke with Rasmus for this interview.

Despite winning 11 rounds this year Coenen, just 17, has moved over to the Red Bull KTM team and also up to the MXGP division. He and his brother Sacha are teammates again, and both plan on coming to America as soon as 2026. As for de Wolf, Meyer asked his team manager about his own possible move to the AMA circuit.

"Many young kids, for sure, talented kids, with the skill set that Kay has, you want to feel out the supercross," explains Jorgensen. "It is a huge part of the sport, even though it is a different sport, sort of, it is a huge part of the industry. Everybody is excited for watching supercross when it starts in January. He has asked for years now: Can he do what he is doing now in America? I was always telling him to concentrate on the world championship, because him trying supercross brings our team not much, just risks. He asked again when he was leading the championship and we made a deal with him—if he stops talking about that and gets the job done, then we will also support you and give it to you as a reward. What he decides to do with it, in the more distant future, I think only he can decide. I cannot sit him down and say he has to stay here in three years. We have a lot of history, and we should continue writing a story together, if he stays in Europe, but let’s talk about one year at a time and see."

The team has not announced who will replace Lucas Coenen, but we should know soon.

Balboni Brothers Factory Race Team Update (Matt Rice)

Gart Vandam (AKA Matt Rice) is keeping the momentum rolling after a career best 31st at Week 9's FSX Halloween race with a 27th in the first moto and a 33rd in moto two at the Fifth Street Cross cyclecross series. This would be the first double race point scoring night for the Balboni Brothers Factory Race Team. Mike Emery showed consistency and charged off the start but unfortunately would finish the night outside of points with a 47-38. Safe to say Mike Emery and Fam can enjoy their beautiful house and sight to the future BBFR headquarters rather than worry about results as they closed on the purchase the morning of the race. Congratulations Emery Family!

Said Gart Vandamn:

Said Mike Emery:

Hey, Watch It!

Check out privateer Jeff Walker's very cool video of the Ironman GNCC's morning race, which had about 700 participants, including some very recognizable ones racing for fun: Ryan Villopoto, Marvin Musquin, Phil Nicoletti, and Damon Bradshaw to name a few! Jeff rode the Sportsman +25 A class on a 2-25 KTM 350 XC-F Factory Edition and made a chaotic race look downright fun. He ended fourth in his class behind Triston Landrum, Nicoletti and Noah Kepple, and eighth overall.

Here’s another installment in the excellent Team USA vs. The World series that Camworkx produced for Motocross Action on rising young U.S. talent like Jaydin Smart, Wyatt Duff, Braxtyn Mes, Joey Vicari, Brennon Harrison and more.

And if you’re wondering what the true first modern international supercross event was, we believe it just might have been the 1980 Sydney Superbowl of Motocross from Australia, featuring imported Americans Rex Staten and Marty Smith, which you can watch right here:

One Lap FPV MXGP of Galicia 2024

Kay de Wolf: The Journey to World Champion | Husqvarna Mobility

Supermini Showdown vs. Mani Lettenbichler | ERAs Episode 7

Head-Scratching Headline/s of the Week

“Evel Knievel Museum jumps onto Rick Ware Racing dragster in Las Vegas”—NHRA

(Thanks Jim Sprites for sending this one over)

“New Orleans ambulance stolen with EMS crew, patient inside”—MSNs

"Roaches, mice and mold: What is happening to airplane food?"—MSN

"Clemson coach Dabo Swinney says he couldn't vote on Election Day"—WCNC

"Florida’s convicted killer clown released from prison for the murder of her husband’s then-wife"—AP

"Monkeys will never type Shakespeare, study finds"—BBC News

"2 adorable pygmy hippos pitted against each other in cuteness contest"—AP News

"North Korean soldiers hooked on porn after getting internet access for first time while helping Russia fight Ukraine: report" -NY Post

Random Notes

If you are wondering about next steps for the 2025 FIM Motocross of Nations at Ironman Raceway, we are hearing that the VIP and camping packages will be on sale beginning on December 1. Also, keep an eye on @mxonusa on Instagram for updates and information as the event begins taking shape.