September 22, 2009 (Chula Vista, CA) – The third stop off of the 2009 UCI Supercross World Cup series and second race for 2012 Olympic qualifying took place in Chula Vista, CA on September 19th. The Chula Vista track is a replica of the 2008 Olympic track in Beijing with a few minor upgrades. The event took place over three days with practice on Thursday, time trails on Friday and racing on Saturday night. With our athletes having just had a week on the track at the end of August, everyone was comfortable with the track and just needed a few warm up laps on Thursday.

The UCI modified the time trial qualifying system this year. After the first TT the top 32 are athletes locked and can’t be changed. Everyone else has to run a second TT for 33rd to 64th. First run results are cleared, so it is perform on demand. Patrick Lebel was a victim of the new rules; his first lap would have been fast enough to get in but his second was JUST out. It’s a tough break, but there’s really is no room for error at these events and some really good athletes didn’t make the cut. All our athletes were able to
put respectable laps and they should be proud of that.

Canadian Qualifying Times:
– Tory Nyhaug 15th (36.758 seconds)
– Jim Brown 58th (38.211)
– Scott Erwood 59th (38.248)

It should be noted that the following Canadian Team athlete were in the competition. Patrick Lebel 65th (38.659) missed the cut by one-one hundredth of a second and Steven Creighton 81st (39.515) got his feet wet in his first BMX SX event.

On the competition day under the lights the race action was very intense; the athletes had to step up their game to be successful. Jumping the 39 foot first jump by yourself in time trial is a lot different from a race with 8 guy’s inches apart in the air over the 30 plus foot gaps. In the 1/8 qualifying motos Jim Brown and Scott Erwood were challenged by the increased competition and just failed to advance.

While second year junior Tory Nyhaug had some better luck and rode exceptionally well to advance to the quarter finals before just missing out on the forth qualifying spot with a fifth. This was a big step forward for Tory in his second BMX SX event; he has proven that he can compete with the best athletes in the World. The entire Canadian Team that attended the Chula Vista SX event took a step forward and it won’t be long before we see our guys in the finals.

Next stop Frejus, France October 10th