The Prince George Motocross Association still wants to have its home closer to home, but for this weekend's season-ending races, the club is returning to its roots.
Blackwater Motorcycle Park will be the site of a two-day PGMA meet expected to draw at least 160 entries.
The PGMA held its first event of the season in June at Prince George Motorsports Park, nine kilometres northwest of the city, which was to become the permanent home of the PGMA, but the club has run into a small hurdle with its insurance coverage and regional bylaws on noise restrictions during evening hours and decided to move the races to Blackwater.
"We've had some issues with the regional district -- we can hold an event out there but we're having problems getting practice times," said PGMA president Mark Nelson. "We did a lot of legwork to begin with and (track owner Shane Lodjn) didn't think it was going to be a problem having a practice night, but now they've kind of made a bigger deal about it.
"Our practice insurance is another issue. CMRC [Canadian Motorsport Racing Corporation] sanctions our events and we can get event insurance, but because the track is on private land, they wouldn't give us practice insurance, so we have to get another type of insurance through a different party. We've run into complications we're hoping to work out this fall."
Blackwater was built in the late-1990s. The course designers, Bernie Hildebrand and Dale Voldeng, incorporated plenty of well-groomed tabletops, tight turns, a tough whoop-dee-do section and a long steep hill near the end of the course riders have to climb and descend. The The Blackwater facility is located off Blackwater Road, about 20 kilometres south of Highway 16.
Because the track is built into a berm, most of the track is visible for spectators.
Jesse Pettis, who won three CMRC national titles this summer, will compete in the junior MX-2, supermini and schoolboy classes this weekend. He grew up racing at Blackwater, has a long string of successes there, and is looking forward to challenge that track poses.
"It has nice natural terrain and it's one of the best tracks on the circuit," said Pettis. "The only thing is the soil is a bit hard but you can work that. I love the Blackwater track for spectating and it seems to work well for me."
Coming off strong performances at the Pro-Am championships two weekend ago in Kamloops, other riders to watch this weekend are: Blade Degen, Landon Nelson, Jonah Brittons and Hayden Wolff of Prince George; Sara King and Warren Constantine of Fort St. James; Tyler Sjoberg of Kamloops; Matthew Davenport of Fort St. John; Levi Nelson of 150 Mile House; and Cole Bernier of Williams Lake.
The races start at 9:30 a.m. today and Sunday.
