BMX: Braintree Takes Pride of Essex Trophy

Source: Julian Allen
Posted: 9th February 2009
Event: Pride of Essex Round 2 - 8th February 2009

Round 2 of The Pride of Essex BMX Trophy was held in the glorious Essex sunshine on a fast and smooth Dagenham track where 33 riders from Braintree set out to bring the trophy home for the second year running. The loyal following of race fans weren't disappointed!!

The Formula 5 "pocket rockets" started off the day with almost a clean sweep for Braintree. Sydney Allen narrowly missed a crash between Tom Stokes and Luke Shriever to maintain consistent race finishes and take the second spot. After dusting themselves down, Tom and Luke finished third and fourth respectively and Joe Reed-Millard rounded off the top five.

The 8 to 10 year old Formula 4 class was to be another hotly contested battle. The youngest in the field was Jake Newton who won the B final. The A final saw Charlie O'Grady finish in fourth spot, Evan Tulloch in a respectable third place and Bethany Shriever rounding off a very good day, just missing out on the top step of the podium in second.
 

The action stepped up a notch in the Formula 3 class. This class is a real proving ground for the next batch of top racers. Shane Redgewell won the B final after some hard heat races. One of Braintree's National riders, Lee Golder, had an unfortunate coming together in the A final to finish seventh. Jedd Hurst missed the carnage and took fifth, just behind Shane Pavitt in 4th place. George Moret flew through his heat races with some quality riding and showed his pedigree by backing it up with a well deserved second place.

Braintree only had 4 out of 11 riders in the Formula 2 category. Toby Bearne is a rider who has really started to show class and went all out in the final to take second spot slightly ahead of a smooth riding Dexter Addington in third. James Knight really had a sense of occasion about his riding and ended his day in fifth place with Chris Potter chasing him down hard in sixth.
 

Some of Braintree's brightest stars race in the Formula 1 class. Matthew Kirk had a hard fall in his heat races and had to finish the day riding through injury into the B final where he finished sixth, not far behind Lee East in fourth. Some of the best riders from the South of England were in the A final. Will Elsey got his characteristic holeshot and led the race all the way to the last corner where he left a small gap and was overtaken. He retaliated with a very strong last straight sprint but was beaten into second by a tyre width. Reiss Harper rounded off an up-and-down day to finish sixth.

The Senior race category for the 25 years and over racers was the biggest field of the day with 24 riders, which meant the finalists would have to battle through semi finals to reach the Main event. Steve Hurst and Paul Shriever missed out on the semi finals and rode in the C final where they finished third and fifth respectively. Gavin Stokes and Joe Kennedy made it into the last 16 where they rode in the B final. Gavin led the race from start to finish for 1st place and Joe battled really hard to finish sixth. The A final had some of the UK's fastest senior riders. Dave Godfrey had an inconsistent day in eighth place, Jason Mills showed a lot of new year form to finish fourth. Julian Allen came out best in a first corner tussle with another rider but came out second best in a last corner scrape with Steve Williams to finish third just behind Steve in second who followed home the day's winner Matt Barnard.
 

Braintree's sole representative in the Old Skool class was returning rider Mark Reed-Millard who got increasingly faster all day to finish sixth.

After a home and away leg race each Braintree beat Dagenham 2-0 to take the Pride of Essex trophy for the second year running. Well done to all of the clubs riders who took part.
 

The next Braintree Bullets BMX club race is on March 1st, registration closes at 11am. For further details check out www.braintreebmx.co.uk.