prrroooggggrrrreeeessss:

Yeah, it's been a bit slow on the blog site lately ... with TO Mittelstadt with a well deserved week off ... followed up by a week off of my own ... I've been more lax than I should on keeping you guys updated on our progress.

Gate:
The single largest cost of getting a BMX track started is obviously the starting gate. Well, maybe it's not so obvious, but, it is a costly item. We're eeking along on getting some of the funds together thanks to the support of you guys ... our very loyal rider base. We have been scratching our heads at trying to come up with a really cost effective solution that would might get us up and running with something yet this year ... but, I'm afraid I can't report much more than that at this time. We also recognize the importance of shaking the trees for sponsor dollars ... but, the proposition is a bit chicken and egg ... do we race to get sponsors, or do we get sponsors to race? Anyway, I hope that (vaguely) explains where we're at with pro-actively selling our program. TO Mittelstadt did find a nicely constructed ticket sales shack that we will be using as our gate house. Fred Yanke has made the thing beautiful, according to John ... I'm looking forward to seeing that thing go up.

New Riders:
I want to personally thank (and will follow up with personal e-mails to each of the following) for coming out to ride our track at practice as perspective ABA members.

- Samuel and Sara Huang
- Kirt and Aaron Konkel
- Josh Dretzka (signed up to a full ABA membership !!!)

You guys and gals are the future of Milwaukee BMX, and, if it's going to work out in the long run ... it's going to have a lot more to do with you than with most of us. Still, our group is more than excited to help get the thing in place.

Old riders we're seeing again

Danny Tavela is going to step up to his full ABA renewal one of these days. He's a former fast expert who turned A-Pro around '87 and returned to racing cruiser a few years ago. Mostly, lately, he's been doing the XC mountain bike thing. But, it's easy to see where his skills were as he was going pretty fast and looking stylish to boot a couple weeks ago during practice.

Amedio Gilmore many of you know Amedio as one of the few pros from the state of Wisconsin to make it to the AA ranks in his career. I can think of only three, Todd Blazer (Madison), Kris Weeborg (Oshkosh) and Gilmore. I remember him from the little bit of racing I did in the mid 80's and that my good friend Jason Leikam was often chasing him around, despite being pretty doggone quick himself. Amedio popped into our open house a few weeks ago and went lap after lap after lap ... finally declaring, I'll be back ... which, I believe he will. It's funny how strong the BMX bug really is ... even 20 years after racing gets left behind ... there's a pull that has brought many of us back into it.

Wednesday Practice:
It's my understanding that, weather permitting, Wednesday practice is going to go off as usual tomorrow night. Please bring your ABA cards.

Kevin O'