Tuesday, December 18, 2012

Kyle "ZMAN" Zondervan at the first UCI Olympic style race with the pack coming down the biggest starting hill that BMX has seen, 2005

 NBL Master Track builder Tom Ritz came up the the design and the UCI ran with it.  Riders from all over the world came to compete but the San Jose CA track was something these BMXers never seen before.  This was the biggest starting hill ever sending many riders packing and heading back home without breaking a sweat.  Bmxers that came to compete did not have a clue or not mentally prepared for the monster berm jump, tight fast berms and technical jumps.  There were even a group of Pros protesting that this is not what bmx racing should evolve too. The race was set because the big sponsors forked out the bread. Those with downhill bmx skills, trail skills, and fearless hearts raced this Olympic track.  The days of muscle head Pros becoming King were over.  Counties started calling Mr Ritz to have them build one of there own and history was made.  We had a few pro riders compete at the time Zman as seen in this photo had the dirt trail skills to compete, another young Psykopath Nick Dawg was a street rider and dirt trail boss so this was just new sandbox for him to play in.  East coast NBL Pro Mike Gonzales was also a young Psykopath rider that hit the course with pure style, this was his type racing..  Psykopath's best result came from another eastcoast Pro Justin Loffredo who almost made the big show.  Justin was not phased with the new style of Olympic racing as he was a top gun in the BMX downhill racing circuit and X games puting up good result. 

           Pic by Andrew Renowtizky

1 comment:

nickdawg said...

A rad weekend for sure. I was just at HP Pavilion this week and was telling someone about how sick that track was. Good times!