2020 East Coast Nationals Race Report

Filed under General on August 19, 2020 | Comment(s)

The East Coast Nationals returned to Severn Maryland’s Chesapeake BMX for the
second year in a row, but with the Recreation Departments last minute call to ban team tents it
looked more like a scene from Ocean City rather than track side due to all of the big beach
umbrellas that the racers brought in leu of tents. This last-minute decision proves once again
that BMXers are tough and just roll with the changes because there still was a decent turnout
regardless, luckily the heat stayed away this year however instead we had rain two out of the
three days and on day three it really poured making the umbrellas even that much better of a
decision to bring along.

Not surprisingly the team of volunteers at Chesapeake had the track in great shape on
Friday, and it held up fairly well even with all of the rain. There were a few extra slippery spots
like the second turn that made it difficult to race at full speed along the bottom, but other than
that the track was in great shape with riders still high speed jumping into turns in the heavy
rain. Even though the moto count was not high this weekend, it didn’t make it any easier for
the near-by riders to score a top finish as the moto’s were stacked with west coast riders trying
to grab up some podium finishes.

Nine riders showed up for the first two days of Pro Open and six on Sunday which is a
decent number considering the heavy rain that forecast for the final day. Evan Schaefer won
the first two days and Paige Zachary won on the final day.
Local rider Kylee Niederberger had her hands full with Hyper’s Isabella Nelson all
weekend in the 13-14 Girls Cruiser Class, Kylee won on Day One, but Isabella Won on Day Two
and Three. 31-35 Women’s Cruiser rider Katie Piotti won all three days, and TNT Factory rider
Susie Levan did the same in the 46-50 Women’s Cruiser Class.
Clyde “The Slide” Santos won all three days in the 7 and Under Cruiser Class, and so did
Louis Kaminski beating out Local Evan Sinchak in the Action Packed 17-20 Men’s Cruiser Class.
From 7 Expert Girls all the way to 13 Expert Girls the top finishes were all the same
every single day with Peyton Bruney, Sequoia Gomolicke, Isabella Stevens, Landon Burian, Mia
Custer, Sadie Hererra, and Avery Chartrand all killing it. This trend ended when Isabella Nelson
beat out the Day One and Three winner Ava Corley in the 14 Expert Girls Class on Saturday.
17-20 Expert Girls Esja Shriver started the trend back up when she won all three days
and this continued all the way to the end of the Expert Girls when Devin Murphy, Lisa Webb,
Chrissy Piper all won.

11 Expert Girls local rider Peyton Boyd recently moved up from Intermediate Class at
this year’s Buckeye Nationals and had an excellent weekend at her home track making all three
mains and finishing 4 th , 5 th , and 6 th this weekend.

Despite having some tough competition in town, local 8 Expert rider Marshall “The Kid”
Warner easily won all three days with giant leads each time, 12 Expert Gaige Gomolicke did not have it as easy since his racks were half stacked with West Coasters, but he still hit the top
podium spot all three days. Ronnie Kim, Jason Kullman, and Jeremy Thompson also won all
three days.

The 36-40 Expert Class stood out the first two days, on Day One the rain had started to
pick up heavily and as the pack rounded the dog legged back section someone’s dog ran out
onto the track and ran right between a riders front wheel and down tube causing the race to be
re-run first thing on Saturday Morning. Fortunately for Greg Custer he was able to win the re-
run keeping his first-place finish. That was the only decent finish he had in that class over the
weekend having crashed with Dwaylon Carter badly at the end of the first straight on Day Two
which seemed to end his weekend.

(above) Chesapeake local Evan Cinchak (YESS) leads on his hometrack.