Our man Filthy Phil Nicoletti is supposed to answer fan questions right here every Friday. It should be easy for him since he's retired from racing. Then Phil decided to keep racing via a new deal in Canada. Right about the time he started training again, his work ethic with the fan Q and A dropped way off.
Now Phil is extra busy because he's mired in a championship fight. Wait what? Really? Phil might WIN?
For more on this, we asked our own resident Canadian, Steve Matthes, to explain what's going on up North.
Folks, the 2025 Triple Crown Canadian National Motocross Championship was supposed to be pretty cut and dried, really. It was going to be a battle up front between two great Canadian riders, then an American making his return to the series after three retirement parties was going to ride around in third. It was all preordained really!
Then reality hit.
Let’s set this up. MX 101’s Jess Pettis, the defending champion, had made the switch from KTM to Yamaha in the off-season. It was going to be a great show between him and GDR Honda’s Dylan Wright as to who would take the crown. Those two are a lot better than everyone else and were primed for some amazing races. One of them would hold the #1 plate for sure, without a doubt, full stop, no further message.
There were heated feelings between these two for a couple of years but they hung out together at the MXoN, their wives are friends, and both guys, despite not being from Quebec, now live about 30 minutes apart there. They were going to war for this MX1 title but off the track, they were friends. Wait, hold that thought.
Returning to the series was Pulpmx/Racer X’s own Phil Nicoletti, after declaring himself done with Deathcross, AKA supercross, in America. He also said he was retiring and we spent a ridiculous amount of money on afterparties for him after SMX in las Vegas. But he’s still racing! Now, as for Canada, Phil raced the series for a couple of years before COVID and acquitted himself well. For his 2025 “comeback” he signed up with the WLTN Kawasaki crew. He said on the PulpMX Show more than a few times that he would be happy to ride around in third behind the top two dogs.
Joining Phil in MX1 was Priority Gas-Gas’s Tanner Ward, who was on Phil’s WLTN team last year and had one MX2 overall win to his name, a KTM privateer named Quinn Amoyotte (fun follow on social BTW) and then the Dutchman, Lars van Berkel, was up to follow the series full time as well. Everything was pretty set really.
Round one hit in Calgary and yup, it all played out perfectly. Wright and Pettis swapped moto scores with Wright getting the overall and our guy Phil went 3-3 and was over a minute behind the leaders. Nicoletti was not stoked on the amount of water laid down on Calgary and let us know about it on the PulpMX Show.
Before round two outside of Edmonton (if two hours is “just outside”), we had our first “Oh okay,” moment. You see, Wright has a slight tendency to crash and did just that during the week, hurting his elbow and the series was thrown for a loop. With the series being just eight rounds, Pettis’s 1-1 in Edmonton was great for him while Wright cruised it home for second in moto one almost a minute behind Pettis. Even wounded, Wright was looking at getting 2-2 and salvaging what he can. However, disaster struck in moto two when his O2 sensor came out of his head pipe and the exhaust heat melted his carbon tank and he DNF’d!
Our guy Phil battled with Ward a bit but went 3-2 for second overall on a track that he hated. Hey, one week it’s the watering, one week it’s the whole track.
Anyway, unless Pettis had an issue, Wright’s title chances were gone. Hey man, it’s only eight races and we had just 12 motos to go, and Wright had a DNF and an injury already.
The next round in Quebec, Wright’s elbow was still an issue so he went 2-2 behind, you guessed it, Pettis’s 1-1. Phillip went 5-3 and I forget what happened in the first moto. Pettis was three points back of a perfect season after three rounds, had a 30-some point gap on Nicoletti, and everything was pretty much running as we all expected, except for Wright’s DNF and practice crash.
Okay so buckle up, here we go. Round four of eight was at the deep sands of Gopher Dunes and everything was thrown wide open when Pettis went down hard in practice, KO’d himself, and had to go to the hospital with chest pain. He wasn’t able to race and so if Wright could go 1-1, he was back!
I was actually at this race and right in front of me, with Wright having an approximate 5-minute lead in moto one, he went over the bars in a weird section. Turns out GDR Honda had the SECOND gas tank malfunction of the year as the tank cracked somewhere along the way, lost all the fuel, and the bike died over a small double. Yup, Wright DNF’d again! He did win moto two by five minutes but lost out on those 25 points. Nicoletti had his worst day of the year (he probably blames me) with two crashes in moto one, and then was cooked from that effort to where he holeshot moto two and went back to sixth. It wasn’t a good look folks. A 7-6 on the day for the #29, but all was not lost, thanks to Pettis being out, and Phil actually TIED him for the red plate! Phil’s absolute worst day of the season and yet he made up a ton of points and left with a share of the points lead! THIS WAS ACTUALLY HAPPENING! Someone check with DC on whether or not a Racer X employee has ever won a national title?
But let’s be real, Pettis was coming back to his team's home track, and Wright was charging hard. No way Phil holds onto this thing right? The black cloud would come down on him, right?
By the way, grabbing the overall in the sand was Tanner Ward with 1-2 finishes, his first ever win in MX1, and that was cool to see. Ward made up some twenty points in the title with his consistency.
Round five, again in the sand outside of Ottawa at MX101’s home base was where shit went COMPLETELY NUTS!
Pettis was out front cruising with the lead, was going to get the red plate back when BOOM, his YZ450 motor went. There were only a few laps to go! Tough break for him after the previous week’s hospital stay. Well, Dylan Wright would make up a bunch of points right? Uhhhh, nope. Wright, as he is known to do, was alone in second when he completely splattered himself over the bars in a nasty crash. Yes, I’m serious. He got up to get ninth in moto one while Tanner Ward again said “Thanks everyone, I’ll take this moto win!” in a great ride.
In the second moto, Phil, Wright, Pettis and a bunch of others went down in the first turn! Side note: on the PulpMX Show, Phil called the first turn at the MX101 track, “the dumbest first turn ever” (or something like that). As everyone was getting up, Wright came from behind and nailed Pettis (most likely by accident but if you’re a fan or Pettis, maybe not?) and both riders exploded off their bikes and both riders DNF’d with overall body soreness.
I’m not making this up!
I will say, I saw a video from the front a few days after the first video surfaced and in that one, Wright swerved more to avoid another guy picking up his bike. Pettis was saying Wright “t-boned” him but that was not accurate either.
So, to review that weekend, Pettis gets another double bonkers DNF-DNF, Wright goes 9-DNF, and Ward wins again and takes the red plate! Our guy Phil gets up from that crash and makes it back to fifth for a 2-5 day. He’s eight points back of Ward for the lead and Ward, at this point, must be wondering what in the hell is going on here. Pettis and Wright are effectively out of this thing unless, I don’t know, whatever happened to them happens to Phil and Ward.
Also, ICYWW, the newly formed friendship for Wright and Pettis is now gone after some harsh words from the Yamaha rider after the race. They’re back to not liking each other. Pray for our Team Canada MXoN team please.
The next round was out in the Maritimes and somehow, zombie Dylan Wright shows up for this one despite some HEAVY crashes the last few weeks. On social media it looked like he was wrapped up some in sort of cellophane ice thing? I don’t know man, it looked rough.
Okay, so at this race (round six) we were back to some normalcy when Pettis and Wright went 1-2 in moto one and our guy Phil got third. Like, that’s how we started this whole thing. Phil had to catch and pass Ward in moto one so he made up some points there.
But then the skies opened up for moto two because of course they did.
Nicoletti used his veteran savvy to not take a parade lap and then he holeshot the thing! Pettis was coming on strong even with a goggle stop and was catching our guy Phil, who complained on the PulpMX Show that he was saving his tear offs, but got roosted by some “*&#&* lappers” and had to toss the goggs.
Pettis got WAY close to our mud man Phil (anyone ever see the 450MX podium at Unadilla in the mud?) but the #29 Kawasaki held on to take the win! Of course Phil being Phil, his 3-1 was only good for second OA to Pettis’s 1-2. But he made up seven big points on Ward who went 4-3. Wright had some crashes (I know, weird right?) and slipped his way to 10th for a 2-10 day.
That’s the recap. It’s a lot I know. There are two rounds to go, one back in Quebec this weekend, a weekend off and then in Walton, Ontario for the finale.
Phil is one point back of Ward, Wright has said "no mas” for this weekend, and Pettis should win the race but who the hell knows at this point? Nicoletti has generally been better than Ward on the non-sand tracks but really, who the hell knows? Can someone who retired with three parties still be a national champion? Anyone other than Wright or Pettis winning this MX1 title was unthinkable before the year started but here we are. Also, the privateer rookie kid, Amoyotte, is only 19 points back as well.
Get the RYDE TV app if you want to see all the action at the last four motos in what has been an absolutely insane series to follow, on and off the track.
