Stars & Stripes Nationals

Leading up to this race, things have been quite busy at South Park BMX. The first turn was pushed back 35 feet, the last turn was rebuilt, a nice balance bike track was added and they crafted a nice bridge to connect the spectator areas behind turn two. Nice additions to an already legendary facility.

 

- GMO

Now on to the not so good. Mother nature started her reign (pun intended) on Thursday with a serious downpour. This led to a 30 minute delay to the start of practice on Friday morning. The wet stuff fell again during the shortened practice session and the race finally kicked off about an hour behind schedule. Bad mother nature.

 

This was the last weekend of racing for nearly every Elite on the planet before the upcoming World Championships in Rock Hill, South Carolina. A few notable names were missing including defending Pro Champions Alise Post, who was busy posting up a fitness modelesque shot from Minnesota on instagram Friday, and Joris Daudet, who was off winning the French National Championships across the pond.

While others were off doing other things, the defending Olympic gold medalist Connor Fields dominated every lap on Friday, that is except the main event. The Elite’s made their case to the UCI official that they had not raced since the end of 2nd round on a completely dry track. They didn’t want to risk riding on a now rain soaked tracked that they never had a chance to test the limits of. They got their wish in the end and ran as the first two laps on Saturday morning.