The Monster Energy British BMX Series kicked off in Cheddar and moved on to Derby for Rounds 3 & 4. In between has been Regional racing in Hartlepool and this Sunday sees another round in Preston!

It’s goping to be a busy summer for Manchester riders as we all look towards our own National as well as competing in other events.

The club is growing with a lot more riders attending National races, with some young talent emerging alongside older riders.

Reports on recent races will follow!

Rounds 1 & 2 of the Monster Energy British BMX Series saw Manchester riders in action across the age classes, with several getting wins!

Congratulations to Dialled Bikes rider Neil Harbour, who took the win both days in 30-34 Cruiser. Neil has been racing for 27 years and these were his first National wins.

Redline’s Jacob Roberts also doubled up, this time in 16 Boys. Tony “Flemdog” Fleming took the win on Sat in 40-44 Cruiser, and podium’d in a stacked Masters class.

A full report will follow shortly!

Summer officially started last weekend with Round 1 of the North Region Summer Series at the excellent Shanaze Reade BMX Track at Tipkinder Park, Crewe.

There was a big turnout across all the age categories, which had been shaken up along the National Series lines. This meant that there were several new classes as old ones were realigned or divided. The always fiercely competitive 30-39 Cruiser is now 30-34 and 35-39, Masters has made a comeback (last year it was basically yours truly) and the 16+ class has gone, replaced by 16, 17-24 and 25-29.

There was some drama before the racing, as the decision was made on health & safety grounds to allow only the Payback (Elite) class to ride the pro-section on the second straight. This provoked controversy, as it has been an open option for all race classes in the past and prompted a couple of Masters riders to decide not to race.

What matters, as always, is the action on the track and at Crewe, there was plenty of it!

First up for Manchester were Oliver Cope and Harrison “Son of Andy” Drelincourt in 7 Boys. Oliver bagged an impressive 4th, whilst Harrison continues his improvement with 6th.

11 Boys saw three Manchester riders competing and shows the club is developing young riders nicely. Callum McDonald was first MCR rider with 5th, Haroun Al Jeddal 7th and Joe “Lil Factory” Saunders 10th.

Winter Series Champ Spence McLeod continued his impressive run of form and took the win in 12 Boys, ahead of two CGR riders on their home track! Brandan Nolan got an excellent 5th place, just reward for his consistent riding.

13 Boys saw Redline’s Valerie Zebrokova finish 4th, a great result on its own as she was racing the boys, but given that she finished two places ahead of longtime rival Jenny Noble, it is a fantastic finish.

Matthew “Factory” Saunders took 4th in 14 Boys, a good start to the season that should give him confidence for the Nationals.

16+ may have gone, but the outcome was the same in the new 16 Boys class, as Redline’s Jacob Roberts took the win. Ryan Cagney got 6th, a solid start to his Summer Series campaign.

In 17-24, there was a thrilling finish, as Andy Clucas and Adam Guest looked to be fighting for the win down to the line, but Rob Hawker passed both with an impressive display of manualling to claim the 50 points on the day. 16+ Winter Series Champ Josh “Peebz” Nicholas, riding for theridenation.com was 5th, with MCR clubmate Jonathan Dawson 6th.

25-29 saw MCR rider “Pistol” Pete Hosker take the win with fellow MCR rider Ross Gill 4th in his first race for new team Love Not Money.

Stuart Hanmer was our lone representative in Masters at Crewe and took 6th, but the race produced yet more drama as Daz Reidy and Chico Hooke were both riding well ahead of the chasers and decided to jump the pro-section. This resulted in a massive cheer form the spectators, but saw both riders disqualified.

16-29 Cruiser consisted of Matthewglynn.co.uk on his own, so he took the full 50 on the day. Fortunately he raced alongside 17-24 so he had some company round the track! He’s got a lot of sponsors, including 661 and Royal, so check his blog out for the full list!

30-34 Cruiser saw Bradford’s Nigel Smith in a Manchester sandwich, as he finished 3rd behind Dialled Bikes rider Neil “Hitman” Harbour and Roy Sutton but ahead of Mark Ferguson and myself.

35-39 sees the older half of the life begins at 30 club go at it on big rigs and it provided some tense racing. Roger Wilbraham was on form but a daring move in the second berm by Pete Butler in the final left Rog nowhere to go but on the grass to finish 7th. Andy “clips rock” Drelincourt is another rider peaking in time for the Nationals and finished an excellent 2nd, a place ahead of Mark Egan; both riders were awarded the Winter Series Title after finishing level on points, so belated congratulations Dreli!

Payback was more than stacked. Stacked, in fact, doesn’t do the Payback field who turned up to race at Crewe any justice whatsoever….

Ultimate Pro BMX turned up in force, meaning 2008 Olympian Liam Phillips was racing, along with fellow British Cycling Podium Programme rider Marcus Bloomfield. Tre Whyte and Curtis Manaton rounded out the team, which looks set for major success this year. Tre’s older brother Dan was racing for Intense, back after injury setbacks. Dan McBride and Hardknox’s Kyle Evans were also there, meaning most of the top male riders supported by BC were racing. Redline’s Tom Palmer, local boys Ash Davey, Levi Ashley, Kieron McAvoy and Shaun Issit, Goldcoast’s Josh Hanlon, Adam Smith and Jack Hall (Free Agent/Route55) from North East and Fastlane’s Cal Strickland finished off the best field seen in years.

Bloomy, Liam, Cal.

The racing, as expected, was superb. The crowd were treated to a display of riding that wouldn’t have looked out of place at the Nationals, or at a SuperCross race for that matter, as the competitors tore round the well groomed track and made the jumps look easy.

The final was tense, all the riders were on blistering form and anything can happen in a BMX race! The gate dropped and it was team-mates Liam and Bloomy who got the lead, just ahead of Cal. Liam capitalised on what looked like Marcus casing a jump slightly to take the win, with Cal third, Dan McBride 4th, Kyle 5th, Tre 6th, Shaun 7th and Dan Whyte 8th.

The Series certainly started with a bang! Now the races have the first round of the National Series at Cheddar before heading to the next Summer Series round, at Hartlepool on May 9th.

The North Region Winter Series came to an end with Hartlepool seeing racers blast round the downhill track looking to gain the last points on offer.

It proved to be a good series for Manchester riders Spencer McLeod and Josh Nicholas with both crowned series champions.

Spence took the win on the day to make it three victories in a row in the series and the overall title in 12 Boys. Brandon Nolan rode consistently throughout the series to take 5th overall, with another MCR rider Ricardo Addymellor 7th overall. The Winter Seres has been excellent experience for these young riders, who have all improved and will be looking forward to the Summer Series and the prospect of Brits qualification.

The lone MCR representative in 13 Boys has been Redline sponsored Valerie Zebrokova, who will have enjoyed the challenge of racing the boys and getting some tough competition. She finsihed an excellent 3rd overall.

theridenation.com’s Josh (or Peebz as he’s better known) took the title in the very tough 16+ class, no other Manchester riders entered enough rounds to qualify for an overall ranking.

In 30-39 Cruiser, Andy Drelincourt finished tied on points with Preston’s Mark Egan, both on 236. Andy had two wins in the series, to Mark’s one, but lost out on the overall with a lower finish in the final round.

The Summer Series begins in Crewe on July 11th

Manchester BMX Club has gone from strength to strength in the short time it has existed.

With the Best National award under our belts from last year, and the chance to put on another great weekend of National racing this July, the club has proved we can host good events. This was the case with the latest round of the North Region Winter Series, which still attracted a good crowd after being rescheduled from the previous week.

The club’s growing strength goes deeper than event management, as riders are rising through the ranks and earning good results in races. With riders in a range if age classes, the Summer Series should see the club sending a lot of riders to the Brits at the end of the year.

On to the racing; We’ll start with the ladies, and 8-9 Girls, which was won by Ellie Jo Chappell, ahead of Eleana Stafford, Imogen Hill and Ellie Featherstone. With 5 Rounds done (the Goldcoast round was cancelled) Eleana leads the class, Ellie Featherstone is in 2nd and Ellie Jo Chappell is 3rd.

10-12 Girls saw Kim Bapista take her third win of the winter, series leader Leah Clinch took 2nd with Ghostrider club-mates Melissa Guest, Lauren Dean and Josie McFall in 3rd, 4th and 5th. Yvonne Plumb took 16+ Ladies and has a commanding lead overall.

In 6 & Under Boys, Ethan Duffy scored a win in the first race he’s done of the series, challking it up for the home club in the bargain. Derby’s Ben Perry took 2nd, Harry Ives from Goldcoast took 3rd, with Noel Reade and Tyler Stevenson sharing 4th.

What can you say about Keon Smith-McDermot’s performance this winter in 7 Boys? How about one word; Perfect. He has won every round so far but has Matthew Baptista hot on his heels. Matthew got 3rd this time, with Manchester rider Oliver Cope bagging an excellent 2nd in his first race of the series. 4th was Matthew Gilston, with Tyler Barnes 5th and Harrison Drelincourt 6th.

Anthing Keon can do, Kieran Bolton can do to in 8 Boys. Another round, another win to keep him perfect for the winter too. Alex Brookes took 2nd, Joel Clarke 3rd, Harvey Howard 4th, 5th was Matthew Hadfield, 6th was Nathan Stanley, Finley Moss took 7th and Ryan Tracey took 8th. The top 6 riders overall in this class all hail from Preston…now that’s saying something about the Pirate’s success!

If you’ve been following the 9 Boys class at major races, you’ll be familiar with the duel between friends and club-mates Finn Hall and Ross Cullen. I’ve reported on their battles for Fastlane and am running out of ways of describing just how close these two are! On the Manchester track, it was the usual hard fought racing, with Ross beating Finn to the line in the last race, but Finn having finished ahead enough earleir to take the 1st place points for the day. Ross has competed in more rounds this winter so has the overall lead, albeit a slim one over yet another club-mate at Preston, Stephen Hadfield 2nd overall but 7th on the day. 3rd was Nathan Wood, Joe Parr was 4th, Ollie Rowe 5th, and Ryan Brookes 6th.

Shay Casey took the top spot ahead of Lewis Locker in 10 Boys, in 11 Boys it was Ben Featherstone’s day as he took his 4th win from 4 races this winter. Manchester’s Callum McDonald took 2nd in his first race of the winter, with William Greaves 3rd, Jake Freeman 4th, Louis Donlan 5th and Joe Saunders doing it for Manc in 6th.

12 Boys saw home rider Spencer McLeod take his best result of the series with a win. Club-mate Riccardo Addymellor also took his best result of the winter with 2nd. Jamie Norris-Still took 3rd, series leader Jack Crithlow took 4th with Manchester rider Brandan Nolan 5th.

Paddy Sharrock took the win in 13 Boys, not leading out of the gate but using his superior skill to get ahead and stay there to the finish. Jack Clarke took 2nd with Valerie Zebrokova holding her own against the boys with 3rd. George Hawker took 4th, Ashley Walker 5th with Skye Beagley 6th.

Arron Skow won 14 Boys ahead of Jordan Taylor Griffiths, good enough to give him a 1 point lead over Jordan overall. This class finished very neatly; 3rd place overall Morgan Woolley took 3rd on the day, 4th overall Matthew Saunders got 4th on the day and yes, you guessed it, 5th overall Daniel Billington took 5th on the day.

Shane Dean was all alone in 15 Boys with the win and a very comfortable lead overall.

16+ was it’s usual barnstorming battle, Manchester was well represented in this class with the underaged but more than talented Jacob Roberts winning in style. Club-mate Joe Davenport showed his continued improvement by taking an excellent 2nd. Mike Hawker battled with Joe for 2nd all day but lost out in the A Final with 3rd. Bradley Minns took 4th with Josh Nicholas 5th. Michael Cummins took 6th ahead of Sabian Brown who recovered to take 7th after a nasty clash with club-mate Matty Glynn who took 8th. That made 5 Manchester riders in the A Final. Ross Gill took even more glory for the host club with a great win in the B Final, with Spencer Beagley 2nd, Mark Barlow 3rd, Thomas Jeffries 4th, Mario Boreman an excellent 5th, Ryan Cagney 6th, Liam Snazel 7th and Louise Abbot 8th.

The big rigs provided some very fast action, with British Champ and National Series Champ Mark Maddox in town to race 16-29 Cruiser. Mark has serious skills and took the win, with home rider John Hewitt taking second on his MTB as he looks to get in form for a season of 4X. Ricky Crompton took 3rd, Bradley Minns wasn’t content with riding one bike and took 4th, OJ Francis was 5th, Andy Johnson took 6th and Matt Carr took 7th.

With the series lead in 30-39 Cruiser heading into the race, Andy Drelincourt felt the pressure to keep it. Keep it he did with a great ride, followed by Darren O’Brien, Mark Egan in 3rd, Ben Rafferty 4th, Nigel Smith 5th and Jamie Duffy 6th. Jamie had a nasty crash and needed treatment but I’m happy to report left the track under his own steam.

40+ Cruiser was Andy Hill’s race, but he was pushed hard by our own Gav Foster who took 2nd. Dave Morton was 3rd, Tim Williams 4th on his 20″, Brent Featherstone 5th, Fred Barlow 6th and Mark Wraith 7th.

Series leader Simon Turner took the win in Old Skool, in another neat order of finish the top 4 overall took the top 4 placings on the day in that order, so Simon 1st, Christian Hunter 2nd, Dave Hall 3rd and Andy Wilson 4th. Lea Pendleton took 5th, John Lister 6th and Simon Parker 7th.

The main event as always is Payback, home rider Cal Strickland had dead legs after a week of constant riding in France but as is the norm with him, gave it everything. Cal took 4th after a cracking final saw Kyle Evans doing it for sponsors Hardknox and taking the win. Grant Hill took 2nd after a grat move took him past Cal on the final berm. Cal crashed into the fencing allowing Tony Fleming to get by for 3rd but recovered to take 4th. Rob Hawker was 5th, with Levi Ashley 6th, Andy Clucas riding with an injured thumb to 7th and Dave Ives 8th.

Thanks to the volunteer race marshals, the North Region (especially our registration ladies and finish line bunny Tina Strickland) and of course to the spectators for cheering on the racers.