Easton McLeod could breathe a little easier Saturday at the BMX track at Carrie Jane Gray Park.
That had nothing to do with the vastly improved air quality, the result of a wind shift that pushed the choking wildfire smoke away from the city for the first time in six days.
What put the young rider's mind at ease was the quiet action of the new $30,000 start gate that sent him into a long plunge to start his seven-year-old novice class race on the refurbished dirt facility, renamed Rolling Mix Supertrak BMX track.
"I like the gate because it doesn't go 'bam,'" said McLeod, who won his first moto. "It used to scare me."
McLeod joined the Supertrak BMX Club last year after watching his friend, Ezra Livingstone, race.
"The track is harder to ride but it's easier to pump now," said McLeod. "It's way more fun. It's awesome."
Saturday's Race For Life, a fundraiser for the B.C. Children's Hospital, marked the official grand opening of the home of the Supertrak BMX Club. It took months of volunteer labour, provincial and city government grants and a concerted effort from a group of generous local business owners who poured their time, construction know-how, materials and heavy equipment into the $200,000 project to complete the transformation of the track. Now Prince George has a race facility comparable to the best on the province.
Styles Johnston is king of the hills in the 16-year-old expert class and has the No. 1 provincial plate to prove it. He's near the top of the provincial standings again and says having a more challenging home track to practice and race on will only help him compete against his age peers in provincial and national competitions.
"I like it a lot better than the old one, the new start hill is a lot steeper," said Johnston. "It''s a new location (for the gate) and they made it a lot bigger with a new gate. The gate's the most important part of the race."
He says the challenges the new track poses, with higher banked corners and steeper, bigger hills, will make him want to stick with BMX as a competitive athlete for years to come.
"There's a lot more I could learn, like manualing (riding on the back wheel only to save forward momentum while clearing small jumps and tabletops) and jumping," said the 16-year-old Johnston. "I could go a lot faster and work on my gates more.
"We didn't have that great of a technical track before. All the other out-of-town tracks are like this and it was hard for us to compete at other tracks."
Supertrak club president Corrie Anderson says the vastly-improved track is a credit to club executive members and parents willing to work long into the night after doing their day jobs to get the track ready. They took turns sleeping overnight in travel trailers to guard construction equipment and put in as many hours as possible building the track features.
"Thanks to those sponsors, we made a dream come true, we've literally moved mountains," said Anderson. "It's amazing, it is by far one of the best tracks in the province right now. It's bigger, it's longer and we have one of the biggest start hills."
The new gate features an eight-lane quarter-barrel barrier that rolls and drops flush with the ground when the button is pushed.
"We have a safe barrel gate, nobody's going to get caught under it," said Anderson. "The other one was flat and there was potential as the rider went over it to get caught under that big iron gate and that scared me half to death. Now it's fun to work the gate and you're not holding your breath."
Emma Walters, 15, races in Johnston's class because there aren't enough expert riders her own age and gender to form a girls class. She's looking forward to the city attracting more bigger races that will attract hundreds of riders. Prince George is rumoured to be in line to host a BMX Canada national series event next year, which would its first since 2013.
"If we get a national next year then we'll get some really good races," said Walters. "The new track will make more people want to come up and race here.
"This is getting up there with some of my top tracks, like Kelowna and Kamloops, that are so well-planned. The corners are good and I like the last straight, it's fast and easy to ride through and you can pedal over a lot of it."
Walters says racing BMX is one of the best forms of stress relief and that keeps her coming back for more.
"It just makes me happy when I'm out of the track and calms me down," she said. "If I have a bad day, if I can ride my bike it helps. It doesn't matter where I am or who I'm riding with, it just makes the day better."
Gord Fairbairn first got involved in BMX in 1989 when his kids started racing. Twenty-nine years later, the 61-year-old is still pedaling his butt off in the cruiser class and he likes what he sees in the track improvements.
"We've come so far," said Fairbairn. "We had a moto shed that was just a tin box with no power and an electric gate you had to pull up manually. Now it's all top-notch stuff. We always had an easy track and now we have a challenging track. Now you need some skill, it's not just who can pedal the hardest, it's skill.
"A lot of guys here stepped up for us. We have a high-tech, top-of-the-line gate and it's a good step up. Now we can maybe attract more riders from out of town. It makes a (national) bid easier when you have a facility that will make guys actually want to come."
Before the end of the season the club will install a roof over the start gate and put a new roof on the moto shed. Anderson said next year, with the construction project behind them, the club can focus more on building its membership while promoting racing events and skills clinics for riders and coaches.
"Hopefully this will bring back old riders that we once had and bring new riders," said Anderson. "It's $65 for a kid for a licence and that's good for 12 months at any BMX Canada or any USA BMX track. It's $2 for practice nights on Mondays and our two nights a week to race, the fee is $5. We fund raise to keep our fees low so people can afford it."
