NBL to Springfield Crowd: “The Sun’ll Come Out Tomorrow.”
You know the crowd is 100% diehard, hardcore BMX Racers when it’s 52 degrees, misting, with a steady cold wind out of the Northeast and TWO races are contentiously raced, and successfully run. The second stop on the 2010 NBL National series touched down in Springfield, IL this weekend, and turned out a small, but tenacious selection of the NBL party faithful. License plates in the parking lot showed Wisconsin, Tennessee, Kentucky, Florida, Ohio, Michigan, Missouri, Texas, Nebraska and, of course, Illinois.
This national was scheduled in tandem with the 2009 Midwest Regional Championships, which would run after the 82, two-moto-transfer motos and seventy-some-odd mains on Saturday.
Now we know why, in some Scandinavian countries, they wear those light-therapy hats to prevent people from going wacko. The grey skies on Saturday had a palpable effect on people’s demeanor, and their racing, with everything seeming like it was going two speeds slower than normal.
The Elite Open class, which was said to have three riders as of Friday, saw two of the three pull, leaving only Tim Sonner as a willing participant. Tim came up from F-L-A for the race, and was of good spirits, despite the cancellation of his class, and the passing of a dear friend and former Dan’s teammate this past week (condolences, Tim).
The motos were done in fairly short order, and by 1:30PM, we had mains in the gate. Things started going a LITTLE faster on the track, come main time. Hyper’s John Miller doubled, taking Cruiser and 35-40 Expert. One name you haven’t heard much from an NBL announcing tower is “Erin Moore” (so little, in fact, that one of the announcers thought she was a he throughout Saturday). Too Sweet took the win. Jordan Ryan is a hometown hero round these parts, and did not disappoint the locals with a win in 15x. Jacob Sherbno (pictured above) came over from STL and sliced and diced 15x. John Sabatini dispensed with a three-man, 41-over expert class with ease.
And, to the title of this piece…as we write this, the sun DID come out tomorrow, with a flawless Sunday served up by Ma Nature. The race ran a three-moto-transfer with 74 motos in “Audi 5000″ mode, and we were waving goodbye to all our friends, driving out of the parking lot at 12:05. More from Sunday’s race when the results come in.
