ABA Gators Get a Great Snap
With a freshly-revised track, and a nation suffering from a bluer-than-normal case of the winter blues, everyone is hot to get on down to Sunny Floorida this weekend for the 2010 ABA Gator Nationals. An as one of the so-called “Versus” races (a Pro race which will be filmed for ABA’s weekly show in the Versus Network), an impressive cardre of Elite names are filling up the moto sheets. The amateur talent is long as well, with license plates from as far away as North Dakota in the lot.
During Friday’s practice, it was fairly clear that either the gravitational pull of the Earth had undergone some radical shift, or there was something amiss with the starting gate. Gate after gate, people were going up & over, and it was later announced that the air ram that pulls the gate up, and assists in dropping it expeditiously, will be replaced in time for Saturday’s practice.
Moseying through the pits Friday, we happened upon the Morphine Industries trailer, where Bossman Jonathan Reeves had a just-off-the-machine prototype of their new front-load pro stem. Way cool looking, so keep your eyes out for that in a month or so. Also sprucing up the Morphine pit was a fresh new look to their trademark pink & black jerseys. And what’s a new jersey design without a new rider to put in one. Well, this one is sure to be a doozy, as once-embattled AA pro, Michael Kapes suited up for practice in his new Morphine gear and Haro race ride. Mike is in the final months of a two-year USAC suspension for testing positive for performance-enhancing drugs in 2008. Mike can make his return to the gate on or after July 7, and BMXNEWS thought it would be interesting to hear, directly from him, how he plans to get his game back. We taped an episode of Announcers Tower with Mike, which will be posted on Tuesday (2/23).
Friday’s pre-race had 45 Motos (which foretells a Saturday moto count of 125-130, based on “The Mike Fields algorithm.” Friday’s Jr. Devo boys class saw a diligent job by Rockford’s own, Tyler Whitfield, who was hanging in strong in the motos, but solidly challenged by Maleik Byndloss and Alan Struna. A Pro had two less-than-a-rack gates, including notables Dennison Smith, Tory Nyhaug, and Gavin Lubbe, was captured by Andres Jiminez of MCS.
Though no serious threat of rain in the forecast, BMXNEWS is now not sweating the fact that sunscreen was forgotten on the bathroom vanity back at HQ. Saturday’s curtains were flung open to reveal a partly-sunny, mostly-cloudy condition, which everyone in the breakfast nook at the Holiday Inn Express were saying would burn off by Noon. Oops, 10AM…Time to saddle up!
More from Oldsmar later today, here on BMXNEWS. As always follow BMXNOW on Twitter for up to the minute reports from the infield, and make sure you check out the Saturday and Sunday photo galleries up on BMXNOW.COM sometime Saturday night, and Sunday afternoon, respectively.
