By Chuck Reherman
Sports Editor
State champions were crowned in multiple divisions at the Yukon BMX Raceway following the BMX State Championships.
More that 250 riders competed in the event on Saturday and Sunday and drew around 500 race fans from Oklahoma and surrounding states and included on rider from California.
The California rider, pro BMX competitor Alec Bob, participated in the Pro-Am race to open the event on Sunday and won the race.
“It was a really good turn out, it wasn’t as big as I wanted it to be, but it was still a really good turnout, Yukon BMX Raceway track director Steve Markcum said. “There were a lot of happy kids. The rain stayed away from us, it went by just north of us. We did get a little bit of rain when we handed out the awards, but that just cooled things down.
“We had around 250 racers and had around 500 with families and all,” he said. “We had a real good turnout from Texas. Kansas had a big race in Topeka during the weekend and so did Missouri, so we didn’t get many from there, but we had the pro racer from California and he took home the $500 for winning and another $465 for the hole shot winner so he had a good weekend.
“Everything went really smooth, we had a few crashed, but the nothing serious. My injury was the biggest injury and that wasn’t even during a race. Everyone went home uninjured, just some feelings hurt. But, we had a lot of happy people when they picked up their No. 1 state plates and getting their awards. That’s always a nice thing to see.”
It was the first state competition hosted by Yukon since Markcum took over the track last year. He did have a collision with a bike and rider after he had closed the track to hand out awards, but was okay after suffering minor injuries.
Racers from ages five to 60 years old competed in the event in divisions that with novice to intermediate to expert to cruiser divisions.
Julian Baker won the five and under novice/intermediate division and Braxton Smith won the five and under expert division were the youngest racers competing.
Charles Long won the 56-60 cruiser division as the oldest competitor to win a title. Russell Richard won the 51 and over novice intermediate division and Jonathan Hoag won the 51 and over expert division.
“We had five and under novices all the way up to 51 to 55 year-old guys that raced,” Markcum said. “We had class 20-inch bike and cruiser which is 24-inch bike that raced so we had a group in every class.
“I am extremely happy with my first state championship event, I think it went really well,” Markcum said. “Even on Saturday, we ran roughly 40 motos and on Sunday we ran 50 motos. I am still extremely happy with the way it ran and I felt we really knocked it out of the park.
