San Bernardino, San Berdoo, The "O Show". You can call the track by many names but what they all refer to is a tightly setup, jumpy and technical track and locals, from the track operator, the parents, to the 5 and Unders, who are extremely passionate about the sport of BMX.
Before I get into the race and results I want to send a few props out so they don't get buried. Firstly, a big congratulations to Renato Silva for winning his first Vet Pro race on Sunday. Renato's been there weekend after weekend and is one of the nicest guys in the world. It's great to see his hard work paying off. Renato is looking for a sponsor so jump on that quick if you're looking for a great representative and brand promoter. Secondly, Mike Moeller - big ups for making the final leap in BMX to AA Pro. I've known Mike and his dad for quite a while. All the way from before Mike's first NBL national in Springfield when I covered the race for the BT and accidentally sent in a shot of Mike with an ABA NAG plate. It ended up on the cover of the NBL magazine (woops!!). Mike trains as hard as anyone and I can't wait to see how he does with the sport's elite riders. Last shout out goes to ISTV's own Cathy Ranking who received an Emmy nomination for a sports intro she was in along side fellow actor Leslie Nielson. Cathy left for New York right after the races on Sunday to attend the ceremony and see if they receive the big honor.
Well, like I said at the beginning of this article, the San Berdoo track is tight and somewhat technical. The turns were where most of the action was at. In the AA Pro class the turns were the place where many of the anticipated main makers went down in Semis, relegated to watching the mains from the sidelines.
On Saturday, Redline's Bubba Harris (a crowd favorite) went down with a whole slew of other riders in his AA Pro semi. In the immediate next moto, Haro's Warwick Stevenson hit some loose dirt on the high end of the first berm and he went down as well. Unfortunately for Warwick the fall further antagonized an injury to his knee.
First (of three) main on Saturday Crupi's Christian Becerine shot out of the gate like he had a 450 strapped to the frame. GT/Hyundai's Randy Stumpfhauser and Specialized rider Brandon Meadows diced for second and third but nobody was catching the man in green. Second main, Becerine again got the holeshot. Stumpy and Felt's Paulie Lange were right there as well. However, Lange and Stumpy hooked up over the step-up into the first turn and Lange swan dived right into the FLY logo hay bail along with Stumpy. Becerine had a clear line to the finish line with Staats' Robert DeWilde taking the second and Fly/Avent's Donny Robinson with the third.
Going into the last moto it seemed as though Becerine had a lock on the first place money. Chistian again got the type of gate everybody dreams of getting and was out in front. However, the same loose dirt that claimed Stevenson in the semi would choose Becerine for it's next victim. Robinson and DeWilde survived the carnage that followed and rode the rest of the track alone.
The points stacked up in Robert's favor with the crash and first place money went to DeWilde with Becerine holding on to second and Robinson on the podium for third.
In Girl Pro the track was giving Redline's Kim Hayashi fits. Kim was telling me she just couldn't get that one "yeah" lap. You know, the one that flows perfectly and you feel fast. The rider who was having some excellent flow laps though was Supercross's Samantha Cools. Samantha consistently lead the rest of the female pros around the track and took the top podium on Saturday. While disappointed in her riding Kim still finished a respectable second. Clayborn's Krystal Hime and Staats' Arielle Martin battle for third with Hime ending up on the podium with the third place money.
I love the west coast Vet Pro races. Why? Because one of my idols, Harry Leary, shows up. Yep, I was a Leary fanatic. I even had the gun metal black Diamond Back and all the diamond back logo gear so I could pretend I was Harry's team-mate back in the day. Anyway, Harry was for sure a crowd favorite but unfortunately was absent from the main on Saturday.
In the Vet Pro main though were four riders, Carnes (Redline), Rupe (Mongoose/Hyundai), Mitchell (Redman/Yamaha/Waverunner) and Parry (Supercross) who are basically AA Pros with a couple extra years on them. The racing is just as intense and moves made in every corner. Rupe won the first main and TP won the second. Mitchell pulled in the third main. However, in the ABA's three main system it's consistency that paid off. The man with the points was Jason Carnes. He showed the endurance he's famous for and got the top spot with Rupe second and Mitchell rounding out the podium.
The pull coming from a couple of the A Pro riders is impressive. The impression was left by Answer's Danny "Easy Money" Caluag and Phantom/On Trac's Mike Moeller. Danny shot from the gate in the first main with some major pull from gate eight. He just continued to pull from there. Phantom/On Trac's Mike Moeller did the same in main two and then again in main three. Redman's Andre Ellison is back on the training/riding program and is looking faster and faster with each passing week. Be looking for Andre to win a few mains here in the near future. For Saturday though it was Caluag beating Moeller on the points, Moeller with the second and Ellison with the third.
On Sunday a crash in the semi took Caluag out of the mix for A Pro. Vegas native Derek Betcher, riding for Revtec, would step up to fill the missing spot. Moeller won the first main with fellow team-mate Kyle Cushman in tow. Second main Betcher must have done some creative visualization on the gate and put himself back in Nellis where his first straight pull is unbelievable. He shot into the lead with the only rider close being Brew/ProMax rider Chris Burke.
The third A Pro main was crazy. Betcher found some help from the notoriously loose dirt in turn one (that claimed Moeller) and then a little aggressive riding by Ellison (who took out Cushman in the second turn). Betcher survived the round's mayhem and scooted in for the win which gave him the overall victory. Moeller ended up with second place points and enough dinero to push him over the top into the AA Pro ranks. I talked to Mike and his first AA Pro race will most likely be Roseville as he has a personal commitment during the week of the Salt Lake City race. The rider who took the third spot on the podium was relatively new pro Gonzalo Marino doing it for Psykopath. He's looking fast and will be a main contender soon.
Kim Hayashi finally found some of that "Flow" I spoke of earlier on Sunday. She won the first two Girl Pro mains with some impressive starts and first straight pull. Canada's Samantha Cools showed she was still a major threat by winning the third main but when the points were added it up it was Hayashi with the overall, Cools with the second and Krystal Hime with the third for Sunday.
Carnes looked set for the win in Vet Pro on Sunday. He won the first main with Parry and Silva second and third. Mitchell got the pop and the win for the second main but again, Silva rode strong and shadowed Darrin the whole track for the second spot. Third main Silva would prove his dominance for the day. Renato shot out of the gate and with Mike Redman reminding the whole pack that if any of the top three riders won the main they'd win the overall (adding pressure to the lap) Silva maintained the top spot. Renato got a last straight challenge by TP but sporting his Brazilian jersey proudly crossed the finish line for his first ever Vet Pro win.
Renato explained in his interview with ISTV after the win that he is currently looking for a sponsor. Any companies looking for a top level athlete who's integrity is second to none, look up Renato to represent you. You won't be disappointed.
Sunday, Warwick and Bubba avoided the gremlins to make the AA pro main. The semis in AA Pro were like most mains with the great turnout. First main, Stumpy shot out into the lead with Stevenson following. Meadows settled into three down the third straight and that's how it looked to be stacking up. However, Harris never settles for any position out of the top three and made a last chance shot in the last corner. Unfortunately, that aggressive move took down Stevenson, Meadows along with Harris himself. Fly/Avent's Jason Rogers and Donny Robinson both rode around the dust to score second and third. Stevenson, with the ailing knee got up slowly and limped to the line after the rest of the pack. Warwick's gate would be vacant come time for the second main.
Randy did indeed prove to be the rider with the pull on Sunday. For the third time he shot out of the gate into a commanding lead and never looked back. This round there would be no falls and the pack went Stumpy, Harris, Robinson with a close one, two, three at the line. Overall results would give Randy Stumpfhauser the win, Harris the second and Brandon Meadows with the third place.

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Now with somewhere around 250 motos it would be impossible to go into depth about any of the amateur races. However, there were some standout battles and some riders simply dominating their age group to be pointed out.
Starting with the groms, Answer's Hunter Pelham came out from Texas to show the 9 year-old cruiser and expert class the fast way around the track. Hunter doubled on Sunday. The day before, Anthony Nunez boosted his way down the second straight for the win in 9X.
The battle in the 10 year-old class was classic. Redline's Logan Owens, Revolution's Kenny Gustafson, Redman's Lain VanOgle, RRC/Fly's Ryan Roberts and Felt's Zack VanKamman went at it all weekend long. Saturday Owen won cruiser, KG won expert. Sunday VanOgle was flowin' and won cruiser and expert. The races were evenly matched thought the whole weekend and the skill level of all the riders in that class is amazing. Every single rider there could not only boost the whole second straight but also throw some pretty wild style in there as well.
Now, for the grom-ettes - Felicia Stancil - I'm going to call you out every single race until you FINALLY do an interview with Cathy or Matt. Come on Felicia, you won 9 girls and 10 and under girls cruiser both days. How can you not give some insight as to how you are pulling this off? Anyway, congratulations to Vendetta's Flyin' Felicia Stancil for another weekend of domination.
"Big Ups" to Hyper's Alise Post who not only won 14 girls both days but was the only amateur girl her age I saw airing out every double on the second straight.
There's a great rivalry brewing between the Phantom/On Trac team and the Hyper team. Some heated battles took place between the two team's riders. A couple of the races ended up in riders either going off the track or in Alise's case crashing. However, I'm sure none of the aggressive riding was intentional. I know families on both teams and all are great people.
Sun/Ringle's Jeff Upshaw. Most people know exactly what I mean or am going to say just by the mention of the name. Even if it comes off as redundant I just have to say what a phenom this kid is. I mean when you can beat the caliber rider Jeff has in his 17 expert class while still throwing 270 X-Ups from the table over the roller into the last turn, there's just something special in the talent. And, so that Big Jeff can understand the typing here I'll put it in a way familiar to him. Jeff.......kicked..........some.........serious...........booty - I'm out.
(That's an inside joke for the enjoyment of the vintagebmx.com crowd)
Well, last week I wrote about the style and preeminence of Everguard's Kirk Chrisco in Nellis. This weekend we had the pleasure of seeing the O'Gorman brothers thrown into the mix. On Saturday, Swifty (Shawn) won 36 and over expert with Kirk in second. Bob took the win in 36-40 cruiser. Kirk took the third. Sunday Bob took the win in expert and cruiser with Kirk again in second for twenty and third for cruiser. Now that's some excellent racing.
Now, check this out, 56 and over cruiser is the oldest class for the weekend. Ok, now most people are thinking "That's great that a kid's dad gets on a bike and coasts around the track". Heck NO - Joseph Moyer, doing it for Define Bikes, flew down the first straight and, on Sunday, BOOSTED the double coming out of the first turn. That, my friend, is not coasting around a track. Everybody went nuts, including announcer Mike Redman.
I have to say what a pleasure it was having Mike Redman as part of the announcing team this weekend. Jimmy Monroe was the other announcer and is great as well. However, nobody in this sport today can match Mike's knowledge of the sport, great personality and hilarious insights into the riders themselves. He is a virtual BMX encyclopedia and is without a doubt the best announcer in the business.
Well, the "O-Show" in San Berdoo has not been around long. However, it really made a great name for itself this weekend as a national caliber track and facility. I have to commend all the people involved for a great weekend of racing.
Next stop - Salt Lake City - See ya there,
Jack