Honda Canada's Rock the Red 2013
 

Last year Honda Canada held the first "official" Moto Gymkhana event in Canada.
This year, they're doing it again with a slightly different format to make it more competitive. Also, riders last year were basically selected by invitation - the organizers invited the press and people they knew to get a good cross section of riders. This year, Honda asked everyone that was interested to submit an application form, and any pictures or videos that would demonstrate why they would be good at Moto Gymkhana.
My submission included footage from the 2012 event, and some additional footage to round it out, and Honda announced yesterday I got a spot.


Note that the speeds aren't quite what you'd see from the riders in Japan! There seems to be some movement though, at least in Ontario, to getting a friendly competitive series going. If you're not familiar with Gymkhana, here's some basics:
It's timed, and you're penalized (time added) for foot dabs and cone mashing.
If you go the wrong way through an obstacle, you're disqualified.
If you fall, there's no specific penalty for that (unless you hit cones) but the clock keeps running. If you get help picking up your bike, you're disqualified.
You can't ride the course before your runs (no practice), you can only walk it.
In this event, we didn't even ride the bikes before our official run. We just hopped on the next available CBR250 and lined up. It was a lot of fun.

For those of you that are nearby, the Honda Rock the Red event includes test rides of all models, ATV's, the Junior Red Rider program, demos of all the power equipment and of course, the Moto Gymkhana. It's at the Honda Canada in Markham, ON (just north of Toronto) on Sunday July 28th

Looks like a blast. Good luck in the competition.