Tag Archives: BMX racing
The pointy end of the season
The end of the 2017 BMX season is fast approaching with a few large meets left for the year, Knox Thunderdome, Tasmanian State Titles and the Victorian State Titles. After travelling all over Victoria this year, racing the Victorian State Series in which I placed 2nd for 40+ retro, I am excited to be going on my first interstate trip to race retro BMX at the Tasmanian State Titles in the second week of November. In reflection, my year was an interesting one, it had a change of trainers, from James Tait to Luke Cristiano, it was full of niggling injuries, loaded with self doubt and apprehension and my mind in overdrive with thoughts of the crash in 2016 that had me out of action for a while, it was these mental battles that I had to overcome as I was getting faster. I can now say that I feel
A retro BMX racing flashback, Warrnambool 2017
On the eve of the new race season, starting with the Frankston Helltrack event, in a couple of days time, I thought I would post about the last open meet that we all attended which seems a life time ago, back in May, on the 21st I did the long drive, first thing in the morning, from Carrum Downs, Melbourne out to Warrnambool in Western Victoria a 3 and a half hour one way trip, arriving at 8am in time for practice, I knew it was going to be a long day. Little did I know, that the day was about to turn bad for me in the worst possible way. Up on the start gate for my first practice lap, the rider next to me, was clipped in and over balanced and his 100 kg frame came down straight on top of me, I got my left foot down
The Sunbury retro BMX factory.
Out in the Northern suburbs of Melbourne a retro BMX racing revolution is taking place and it seems that retro BMX racers are coming out of the Sunbury BMX club on a production line. It all started at the 2016 National BMX Championships when club coach James Lautier, got himself on an old school bike and came out and won the 2016 Australian Retro BMX title in the 14+ category. A young Samuel Todd, would then start to take an interest in retro racing and soon was on the starting line, but being that there was not a lot of junior retro racers at the time, he would often line up against the old guys at open meets and as you can see from the video of 2016’s Geelong Thunder race meet, you can see he acquitted himself well, including giving this old bloke a hiding every moto.
That is a wrap, retro BMX racing at the Frankston Summer series
Let me start by saying, “Kudos, to the Frankston Sharks BMX Club”. Twelve months ago the club was struggling and a new committee has since came in and turned the club around. On the retro side of things, in the 2016 series, I came 2nd behind Russell Brown and no one else qualified for a placing in the series. Fast forward 12 months and I scraped into the top 8, 10 of us qualified for end of series awards and over the series, we had the likes of Brendon Marshall, Don Davidson, Darren Stevenson, Aleisha Patttison, Neale and Nick Searle and others come and race a few rounds. Retro constantly had 2 gates and was the feature class of the night, so to the Frankston Sharks, well done and thanks for having us. Retro Results: 1st Scott Burgess 32 32 23 19 33 33 28 200 2nd Ash Grange 21
Winning my first race
Friday night, 12th May 2017 saw us at the 5th round of the Frankston Summer series and with only one round to go, it is serious business, particularly for people like myself who are on the cusp of the top 8 and in for a chance of an award for the series. Eleven people were racing the retro BMX class for the night and as usual with an odd number of riders it would come down to the BMX gods to be on my side to get through to the main final for the night. The first moto I was on track to claim a spot in the main, with a 4th place finish, alas the BMX gods laughed at me in the second moto, where I was in the moto of 6 people, which was absolutely loaded, unfortunately I finished a distant 6th and even though I pulled another
Retro national titles, my predictions
With the 2017 BMX Australia Retro national championships a little over a week away, I thought I would look over the fields for next weeks retro racing and give my predictions for the 4 classes that will be racing their retro bikes for the Australian title. Classes that will be competing are the 8 to 14 boys and for the first time ever we also have a stand alone girls class with 7 girls in the 8 to 14 class, the 39 and under men and the 40+ men. 8 to 14 boys Over the last 12 months, last years 5A Kyal Waldron has improved out of sight and with this being his last year in the 8 to 14 class I think he will go very close to taking the win in the 2017 event. Fighting every step of the way will be last years 3A Liam Carruthers who
Retro BMX racing from Frankston to Wodonga
Another big week of retro BMX racing comes to an end and a new week is set to begin. Along side the normal training, Friday night saw Retro racing at Frankston BMX track for the 3rd round of their Summer series. Retro is getting bigger at Frankston every week, 11 riders hit the track on Friday night, with first time Frankston racer Brendon Marshall making the long trip, from Doreen in the Northern suburbs of Melbourne to the Frankston track at the gateway to the Mornington Peninsula. Initial thoughts from Brendon were, that he quite liked the track, it was fun to ride and had a nice flow to it, as it turned out Brendon really enjoyed the track as he was to be the eventual winner on the night. With 11 racers in the retro BMX field, the BMX Gods were going to smile upon someone getting into motos