FLY Future Pro Challenge Race Report - Photo Gallery

1st place podium - Front, Courtney Jurick, MTV "Made" TV Guest, 2nd row, Savannah Lahr, 1st place girls and Tommy Zula, 1st place boys. Back, Gene Bedinger, race organizer.	2nd place podium - Left, Erin Moore, 2nd place girls. Right, 2nd place boys, Jonathan Rapp.	3rd place podium - Left, Allie Dragoo, 3rd place girls. Right, 3rd place boys, Patrick Parker.

FLY Future Pro Challenge Race Report

For the 5th year Steelwheels BMX in Hobart Indiana was the host for the FLY Future Pro Challenge. Sunday December 14th will be a date that will go down in history for the 43 riders that were able to make the trip to Northwest Indiana for the race.

This event was started 5 years ago as kind of a local NAG5 Challenge. Heck, it’s even named after the old, old Friday night race the ABA used to put on at the Grands years ago. But now it’s grown into a “must race” for most of the Midwest’s top amateurs. I’ve always thought of it as the Indy 500 or the Superbowl of local short track BMX racing, but with the greatest sport in the world being in the Olympics this past summer for the first time in history and last year’s winner of the Future Pro Challenge Dominique Daniels having a shot at the games in 2012. Just for fun…Let’s imagine this is the Midwest Olympics.

Why not?

This race has a strange format like the Olympics where your lane for the main event is based on your Qualifying results. This race has local celebrities taking part in pre game celebrations like the Olympics. This race brings some riders out of retirement to go for the gold like the Olympics. AND…The trophies for this year’s Future Pro Challenge were gold too.

So here it goes.

The ladies were up first and the small country of Arkansas sent one of their strongest riders across the globe to compete. The local villagers call her “Too Sweet” but her passport says that her real name is Erin Moore. She rides for Mike’s Bikes based in Iceland. Oops, I mean Minnesota. Qualifying was going well for her until a crash in the third round with Indiana’s Savannah Lahr who races for Track Stars BMX.com. Erin came out of it with a badly sprained ankle but knew that her fellow countrymen at home were gathered around the only television for miles to cheer her on. So she ignored the pain and suited up for the medal round.

And speaking of the host country Indiana, their Olympic committee put all athletes on a strict training regimen for this race because they haven’t won either the Men’s or Women’s Gold in BMX since 2004. It must have paid off because half of the women’s main event was filled with Hoosiers like Joni Brown for Dirt Union, Kayla Norton, Crystal Kalogris for Excalibur/Intense and Savannah Lahr.

Their border country to the west, Illinois were only able to get two of their team to the medal round this year with Heather Bruchman for Team Rock-N and Shelby Goodwin for Bob’s Bike Shop. Factory Standard’s Allie Dragoo out of Michigan made it in also after surviving a crash in the first moto.

The women’s main event was now lined up as the eyes of the world focused in. Top qualifier and odds on favorite Crystal Kalogris was in gate one just like Shanaze Reade was at the “real” Olympics. Hmm…..

THE GATE SLAMS DOWN!

As the pack flies out of the first turn our favorite is in…2nd!? Hmm, sounding more like what happened in Beijing right? Shelby Goodwin got the holeshot and was speeding out front. Crystal was just a little faster but couldn’t get by. Going into the third turn Crystal goes to the inside as Shelby hit the last roller of the rhythm wrong and drifted too high. They both crashed hard when their bikes tangled up at the top of the berm. Savannah got around clean for the win and took the gold for Indiana. Erin and Allie followed her for the silver and bronze. I’m going to look for Savannah’s picture the next time I buy a box of cereal!

The men were up next. All 32 riders were scrambled into 4 full gates for the motos. Wait!!! Now this is starting to get a little spooky, the “real” Olympics had 32 riders too. Hmm…..once again.

Olijuwon Davis had the best score from the motos but came unclipped just before the gate dropped for his semi. He moved forward in the pack but ended up crashing out. Was there a jinx to having lane 1?

The 8 men that went on to the main were Patrick Parker, Brandon Brown for Team Overcome who’s coming off a win at Grands. Ben Kohls for Ben Kohls Racing who had to win his last moto just to get into the semis, 32 year old Gregg Seal for Excalibur, 14 year old Jonathan Rapp for AVENT/BOMBSHELL/Maxxis, The Jones brothers of Garrett and Brent for Sudden Impact and Tommy Zula for Excalibur/Intense. Because Tommy was now the top Qualifier that won his semi after O.D. crashed out he could look at the moto sheet for the main before anyone else and move if he wanted to.

Knowing that gate 1 was cursed Tommy decided that moving would be his best bet. I also think he might have won a few chess games in his life because he saw that if he moved to 4 then his teammate Seal would be moved to 3, bettering his chances also. All 8 riders on the gate knew that tons of cash and prizes from FLY, REDMAN, BOMBSHELL, JOHNSONBMX and BMXMANIA were waiting at the finish line for them along with getting to meet the star of MTV’s "Made" BMX episode Courtney Jurick who sang the National Anthem and would be handing out the gold at the end of the day.

GREEN LIGHT!!

And Tommy Zula snaps out of the gate with the lead from 4, he cuts low in the first turn to protect the inside and to avoid a crash like last year. Jon Rapp, the youngest rider to make the main chases after him in 2nd making his new sponsors proud. Brett Jones was in third and looking to medal until the last turn where Patrick Parker dove inside and Jones, Jones, Brown and Kohls all went down in a sea of yellow jerseys. (Didn’t Jared Graves have on a yellow jersey too this summer?).

Gold, silver and bronze went to Zula, Rapp and Parker. OHIO WINS for the 3rd year in a row!

Seal swooped on by to take the 4th, as a mad dash took place for 5th as Garrett Jones and Ben Kohls crossed the line together after getting their bikes untangled with Kohls running with his. The finish line video had to be checked in the prize room 20 minutes later to see who got the spot. It went to Kohls after some debate between the riders and race officials.

The FLY Future Pro Challenge promoter would like to thank the entire staff of Steelwheels BMX, Jackie Altizer, Guest Announcer, Dan Rumple, and of course, the sponsors, FLY, REDMAN, BOMBSHELL, JOHNSONBMX.com, BMXMANIA, FORMULA, capitol nutrition, Mike’s Bikes, Team Rock-N and expert skateboarder Josh McCafferty who was at his first BMX race and official video cameraman. He’s now switching to BMX. That’s what this race is all about.

FLY Future Pro Challenge Photo Gallery

All photos, Jerrod Huffman for BMXmania.com - Complete photos available at www.jrodsphotoshop.com