First Race of 2008 a HUGE Success:

Mother natured huffed and puffed, and dropped monumental amounts of rain ... in fact she's back to her old tricks at the moment this is being posted ... but allowed us a couple hour window through which we ran our first race of the 2oo8 season.  The total moto count of 14 was nearly as high as any single point we ran last season -- so we're really happy with the turnout.

Huge thanks to all of you who grabbed a rake, shovel, or shoved a wheelbarrow that allowed the show to go on.  We are really grateful and fortunate that the BMX community is so willing to pitch in and help out.  

Below are a bunch of images we were able to capture during the mains.  Results will be posted soon.

13 x works their way on down into the first corner ... a super smooth Fondy BMX rider is leading out Milwaukee regular Nathan Labecki into the first corner.

RJ Eckert out front and in command in 8 intermediate.  A quick peek over his shoulder let's him know that he's going home with another win in his portfolio.

16 expert Brad Olson is pulling intermediates Colin Kohls and Chris Wipijewski down the first straight.  Olson's dad Randy worked all last weekend to get the track completely dialed in ... only to learn the first lesson of outdoor BMX track preparation.  Anything you can improve in two days work, Mother Nature can undo in a couple of hours.

Eastern view of a Westbound Baake.  I'm not sure if this is Cole or Colin ... but, both were looking good all day.

Reece Rankins was pretty seriously quick all last season at Milwaukee ... but, has made noticeable improvement since our last race ... he was pulling out the stops in the 9x class all day.

The Kuwahara kids, Sam Cabaltera and Dane O'Donnell putting it on the 8 novice class.  Neither one of these kids is going to be hanging around that class for very long.

Pretty much ... Ben Kohls owns Milwaukee BMX ... yeah, the kid is just dialed at our track.  Dana Mittelstadt, in hot pursuit, is rocking the intermediates trying to chase Kohls down.  Mittelstadt is another rider that's made major progress in the year that Milwaukee BMX has been in existence.

Jay Labecki made two fantastic position passes in each of his mains ... I watched as he zipped on by me at the line in the 41-45 cruiser class ... and in his 20" main, he laid a similar move on Karl Ausdembruch going into the last turn.  Len Cabaltera followed suit to pin down the second.  Talk about re-shuffling the deck !!!

Yeah, we shot a few "glamour" shots post race ... this is pretty much my favoriate of the day.  Brad Olson, clicked out and dialed in ... good jump, cool photo.

Our Best Wishes

John Maurer passed along word that Brian Pochel, who I can recall from his days as an A-Pro in the mid and late '80's, has been waging a fight with cancer for nearly a year.  Last year, it was discovered that he had tumors in several of his vital organs ... which is typically a sign of advanced stages.  After what was thought to be a successful course of radiation and chemotherapy ... it's recently been discovered that the cancer is back.  Brian has always been a straight arrow guy and this is nothing that personal habits or lifestyle brought on -- like Lance Armstrong -- Brian is an otherwise athletic guy who just happened to develop tumors.  We're all hoping and pulling for Brian that remission will be somewhere in his future.