A much smaller group of Manchester riders made the trip to Leeds for the penultimate round of the North Region Winter Series.

With track work at Platt Fields taking up the time of a lot of riders, the task of representing the club in Leeds fell to some of our younger racers.

Spencer McLeod continued his stellar form this series by taking a great win in 12 Boys, with fellow MCR rider Brandan Nolan 6th. Spence is now in a commanding position atop the standings in this class with 238 points from 5 rounds. Although there is the final round in Hartlepool still to come, only 5 rounds will count towards the overall and by my mathematical calculations, Spence can’t be overtaken.

The next class that featured MCR riders was 16+ and there was similar success for the club, with Redline sponsored rider Jacob Roberts taking the win, his third win in three races this series. Matty Glynn took an excellent 3rd, Josh “Peebz” Nicholas, riding for sponsor theridenation.com took 5th and has a strong lead in the overall. Ryan Cagney continued his improvement and made the B final.

Roy Sutton was our lone rider in 30-39 Cruiser, which usually sees the most MCR riders competing. He took 4th on the day. Andy Drelincourt still sits atop the standings, but has a slim lead over Mark Egan of Preston and Bradford’s Nigel Smith. The Hartlepool round will be the decider!

In 40+ Cruiser, Gav Foster went one better than in Manchester and took the win.

Payback was as usual exciting, with Fastlane’s Cal Strickland getting the win comfortably ahead of Kyle Evans and Jordan Hayes.. Kyle still has the overall lead in the series though.

The North Region Winter Series rolled into Coppull for Round 4 and Mid Lancs BMX Club had been working hard to ensure the track was in pristine condition.

With 160 riders braving the cold, there was plenty of exciting action; in 12 Boys, the performance of the day was Spencer McLeod, finishing an excellent 2nd behind Preston’s Euan Hunt. Riccardo Mellor got 7th and Brandan Nolan got 8th making it a great day out for the young guns of Manchester.

Valerie Zebrokova has been duelling it out with the boys in 13 Boys and got a solid 6th in Coppull, all good experience for the Summer seaon in 2010.

Matthew “Factory” Saunders got 5th in 14 Boys, with his usual display of super smooth riding. When he actually hits 14, he’ll have more power to go along with the skills he has plenty of, but by then he’ll also probably be riding up too….

16+ has been the biggest class at these Regionals, with just shy of 40 riders having competed in at least one round. Coppull saw Manchester and Redline’s Jacob Roberts make it look all too easy taking a very impressive win in the A Final. Joe Davenport was also in good form but a crash put paid to his chances of making the A, so he settled for taking the B Final. To make it a clean sweep of finals, Ross Gill won the C.

Payback saw Pete Hosker recover from a crash to take some well earned points, but he’ll be disappointed to have taken a dirt shower. Cal Strickland took all his motos by a mile but come final time lost out to fellow Elite rider Luke Tamblyn by the narrowist of margins.

In 30-39 Cruiser, Andy Drelincourt put in another great performance to keep him on top of the standings for the Series.

2009 National Champion and British Champion Jacob Roberts

A full race report will follow as I have no idea who won…

I do have a good excuse though; in the 25+/Cruisers class I was busy getting thrashed by Ross Gill, Matty Glynn and new member Matt Haynes. As for the other classes….

The BMX Talent Team arrived en masse as they were in Manchester for a training camp, the guys and girls absolutely flew round the Platt Fields track, despite having had a week of gym sessions and riding to contend with.

The youth club riders who had stayed on and their parents were treated to a display of excellent speed and skills from the TT massive. Then, a man in black arrived….

“That’s Dan Atherton” someone said…Indeed it was, Dan, one of the three Atherton siblings who have taken the world of Downhill and 4X by storm, was in town to see a physio in preparation for the MTB World Champs. He rode the track on his BMX and didn’t seem to mind the stares from several of our riders!

What can I say? Manchester BMX; the place to be!!!!!

Here are some photos of the action from the Manchester rounds of the BMX National Series, taken by Abi.

Check out more great pics at; www.abitaylorphoto.com

Here’s a great one of Cal Strickland, tearing the track up in training. Cal got 2nd on Saturday, a fantastic result!

An incredible amount of work went into the track to make it ride well for the Nationals, with the whole Manchester club pitching in to complete drainage work (with David Zebrok and John McLeod braving the insects to drain the swamp that used to occupy the 1st straight), reshape jumps, resurface the track and perform general tlc. Andy Drelincourt could be seen, just, in the dark the Thursday before the racing applying sprinkles of dirt to the lips of the jumps.  The work paid off, with an overwhelmingly enthusiastic response to the track from racers.

Carhartt’s banner greeted the riders as they crossed the finish line.  Carhartt sponsored the event and provided some of their clothing for raffle prizes, as well as giving away plenty of stickers to racers and spectators alike!

Girlracer were on hand to support their team riders, Izzy Ferrada, Chloe Napier and our own Valerie Zebrokova. Girlracer have an excellent website with news from the world of motorsport, water sport and of course extreme sports including BMX. They also have a section on their site devoted to the athletes, with profiles on Izzy, Chloe and Val  that include interviews and links to sponsors.

EA brought their excellent infrastructure to the Nationals, including the commentary tower that was home to Rich Eames and Scott Dick for the weekend (ok, not literally home for the whole weekend, but you get the point) The commentary really made the wekend an “Event” with the dynamic duo’s mix of knowledge, wit and enthusiasm.  Terry Green was also in the Tower of Power making sure the music matched the exciting action.

The prize….

Trophies awarded to Boys and Girls 20″ categories were much sought after… I’d like to think that’s because they were presented by yours truly but apparently it’ s because they look cool with their Carhartt centrepiece….

And the winner is……

Marcus Bloomfield took the glory on both days. He’s on blistering form at the moment and also took the time to give an interview to Channel M before his final on the Sunday.