It was a picture perfect Sunday in March that we finally kicked off the 2015 season. With 23 motos on the docket, and lots of visitors from outside the RVA, the turnout was truly worth every minute and hour we spent getting the track ready.

First and foremost, we MUST thank a few people who, without their help, there would not have been a race on Sunday.

On Friday afternoon with the forecast calling for 18-24 hours of steady rain, the only way we were going to be able to make this race happen was to tarp the track. Bill Light and Jason Hartley (a BMX’er here for a couple of months from Australia) came out and helped Gary get the track covered. Without BOTH of those guys, we would not have completed the work to cover the track and therefore would not have been racing.

Then on Sunday morning, Kitt West was there at 8am helping Gary remove all the tarps, and begin to triage the trouble spots on the track. A very very difficult and dirty task. Without Kitts help we may not have been able to remove the tarps and work the trouble spots quickly enough to get the track ready for the day.

These three guys Bill Light, Jason Hartley and Kitt West are THE reason we were racing Sunday. Be sure to thank them next time you see them. And also a huge thanks to EVERYONE that volunteered. From the Lane family totally rockin the concessions, Vincent and Dan running gates and staging, Andrea and Diane running a perfect registration without a single repost, Luck (who was battling the flu) and Mike Lane for the last minute work on the gate and our new compressor, and everyone else that pitched in to help this race was only possible because so many stepped up to help.

Now, on to the racing!!

We were a bit delayed getting started as track prep ran long. Once practice got underway riders helped to roll in 2 or 3 spots on the track which were still not 100% dry. We continued to work those sections right up to the drop of the gate for round 1. After that, the track began to tighten up and by the end of the day it was dry, packed and FAST!

The weather was simply fantastic. After this brutal late winter, any day that is dry and north of 40 degrees is great and sunshine and temps approaching 70 were better than we could have hoped. The wind, while it did make for some tough work on the second and forth straights, it was fantastic for helping the track fully dry.

87 riders in 23 motos made for really awesome racing all day. As the day went on, the track dried and the racers got faster. So much tight racing down the first and second straight, I can’t remember another local race with that much elbow contact! All of that on our new layout, which seemed to produce a lot of this tight racing, the action all day was intense! We hosted another Expert challenge this one won by Marshall Higgins on what was the fastest most exciting lap of the day. We had numerous new and first time riders, with 5 or 6 of them on Richmond BMX loaner bikes!

And how about all the folks coming from out of town. We had families from New Jersey, Maryland, West Virginia and North Carolina all in attendance.

A truly memorable opening day on what we expect to be the best season yet at Richmond BMX!