Noah Hudson, 4, practices at the Columbus BMX race course. This weekend, CBMX will host a fundraiser for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society in the Race for the Cure on Friday, the State Qualifier on Saturday and the Gold Cup Qualifier on Sunday.
Submitted photo
Columbus BMX is going to have its biggest events of the year starting on Friday.
CBMX will host the Race for Life on Friday, the State Qualifier on Saturday and the Gold Cup Qualifier on Sunday at Dunn Stadium.
On Friday, CBMX will host a fundraiser for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society in the Race for the Cure. The entry fee is $24 for class and cruiser and $5 for balance bikes. Registration and practice is from 6 to 7:30 p.m., with racing to follow.
On Saturday for the State Qualifier, the entry fee is $30 for class and cruiser, plus an extra $25 for second bike, $10 for balance bikes and $10 open bikes. Registration and practice is from 1 to 3 p.m., with racing to follow.
To qualify for the state championship race, participants need to have raced in four qualifiers to be eligible for the race. That race will be held in September.
On Sunday for the Gold Cup qualifier, the entry fee is $40 for class cruiser, plus an additional $35 for second bike and $10 for balance bikes. Registration and practice is from 10 a.m. to noon, with racing to follow.
The Gold Cup qualifier is a regional race that includes riders from the North Central region. The Gold Cup championship race will be in Illinois in October.
CBMX has been around for more than two decades and is one of seven BMX tracks in the state. It houses balance bike, mountain bike, dirt jumper, STACYC and BMX bike racing. Additionally, CBMX is the only track in Indiana, Ohio and Kentucky to provide STACYC races.
CBMX is an affiliate of USABMX. The registration to join CBMX is $80, and that goes through a full calendar year.
It is broken up into three different classes — novice, intermediate and expert. Beginners and riders just starting out are novice. To advance to the intermediate class, a racer must win 10 races in the novice division. To advance to an expert, riders must win 20 intermediate races.
CBMX brings in people from the Ohio Valley area, including families from the state outside of Bartholomew County and also Kentucky and Ohio. In fact, CBMX has brought in 717 riders from more than 200 cities and 20 states across the county the past couple years.
CBMX holds practices and races three times a week, with the races typically run on Saturdays. But they can be moved to fit other races across the state.
Racers wear long sleeved shirts, pants, normal shoes that are not open-toed, gloves and a helmet. The helmets can be given out by CBMX if it is not the helmet doesn’t meet the standard requirements needed. Newcomers without a bike can also rent a bike for $5.
“If you’re new and looking for a bike, we’ll help you out,” CBMX track operator Andrew Yoder said. “If you’ve been around and raced all season and just not getting a bike, we rent them out.”
Yoder started racing BMX when he was 9 years old in Fort Wayne. His dad was the track operator in Fort Wayne when Yoder was racing. Yoder raced many BMX races across the nation during his career as a rider.
Some of the top BMX riders that have practiced and trained at CBMX include Felicia Stancil and Drew Polk.
Stancil placed fourth in the Women’s BMX in the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo two years ago and was first in the 2022 UCI BMX World Championships in Nantes, France. Stancil attended Marian University and was the USA Cycling Collegiate BMX National Champion in 2014, 2015 and 2018. Polk was the top national amateur last year.
The numbers locally also have gone up in the past few years. Racing competitors here in the Columbus area have doubled to close to 30 riders. Overall, each race locally has approximately 100 riders outside the area mostly in Indiana, Kentucky and Ohio.
Yoder mentioned CBMX receives a lot of support from the Bartholomew County Parks Department that allows them to do many great things for the community.
“We’re a non-profit organization,” Yoder said. “We make money, but everything we spend goes right into the track, into the facilities, the bikes, the rentals and everything else so we can give back to the community.
“The great thing about BMX is, nobody is going to win for you,” he added. “It takes a lot of self-determination, and it teaches you how to go out there and do things for themselves.”
