NZ BMX Nationals
15 April 2009
So Nationals are all wrapped up for another year with some awesome racing and a fun track – fast first straight, jumping second straight, rhythm third straight and a last straight where you have to stay focused until the finish line.
We left on Thursday morning to make the trip up in the Beef + Lamb beast to Whangarei for the 5pm practice but with traffic bumper to bumper from the new tunnel until Warkworth (12kms), it added over an hour to our trip. This would have made us miss practice but it had been rained out anyway.
Friday was official practice day with Mighty 11’s in between sessions. As the day went on, my gates improved which I was happy with and loved jumping the second straight.
Mighty 11’s had some awesome racing with the five riders selected by the end of the day. Liam Perry, Dylan Ngatai, Brent Roguski, Connor Loomans and Joshua Smith made the final team. Congratulations to them and to everyone else involved in the test, also, to the chicks for mixing it up with the boys – proud of you all.
Saturday rolled around with the start of National Champs and it didn’t dissappoint. The Domestic (NZ only) UCI Round was run in block format over the “am” session of racing and before 11am, we already had three National Champs. Marc Willers in Elite Men, Kurt Pickard in Junior Elite Men and myself in Elite/Junior Women (which was combined due to numbers).
In the “pm” session, cruiser started with four rounds before the end of the day. I won all four races with Elyse Imber, Vanessa Quin and Tania Carson rounding out the top four.
Sunday hosted the finals with some of the best racing I have seen in ages. Kurt Pickard took out the Men’s superclass and I won the female superclass and also the Elite Womens Cruiser. Matt (my bro) and Josh Woodcock had some intense racing all weekend with the points over decision all coming down to the final. As they both came out of the gate and down to the first jump side by side, it was going to be right down to the wire. Unfortunately, Josh’s chain dropped off over the first jump and the title was decided. Look forward to watching you guys battle next year as well.
Managed to miss all the traffic heading home on Monday where I am getting ready for Europe on Thursday with Marc, Kurt, Matt Davies and Ryan where we will meet up with Ken ready for a couple of European Rounds and the Copenhagen Supercross.
Thanks to everyone for your support for another New Zealand season.
Will send through updates while in Europe and let you know how it's all going.
Thanks again,
Sarah
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