The following race report is an update from Haro/Live to Play Sports team coach Brendan Arnold:
Supported by Haro Bikes, ONE Industries, and Joyride 150, the team roster includes some of Canada’s best rising BMX stars: Alex Wright, 18, Emily Macpherson, 17, and Nik Doyle, 17, all from Kingston, ON, and Josh Samells, 16, of Milton, ON.
After a successful Ontario Cycling Camp in Rock Hill, SC, at the end of March the team got back into the swing of things with Alex, Josh, and Emily all heading to one of the largest races of the year the Dixieland National in Atlanta. This was Alex’s first A Pro race and he did extremely well reaching the semifinals on Day 2.
Emily was riding really well but had some bad luck in her semifinal and didn’t transfer to the stacked main event. Josh had the toughest class of the weekend with over 50 riders in the 16x class. Josh came home with a great 5th place.
After two weeks back in Canada and some solid work at Joyride 150 and in the Gym Nik, Emily and Josh headed south to race another big event the UCI Music National in Nashville, TN. The track in Nashville is fast and smooth, perfect for a Haro setup.
Emily unfortunately took a crash in practice and broke her collarbone. She will be out 3-4 weeks and should be back in time for National Championships. Both Nik and Josh had awesome weekends with Josh qualifying to both days finals taking home a solid 4th and 5th place respectively. The newest member to the roster is Nik Doyle and he has been working really hard in training and this showed in his racing. Nik qualified for semifinals and had some serious first straight speed against guys he wasn’t close to in 2014.
Be on the lookout from some more from Nik in the coming months.
The next stop for the riders is the Pan Am BMX Test Event and Canada Cup #1 and #2 in Toronto, Ontario on June 13/14. This will be held close to the Live to Play offices at the brand new Toronto Supercross BMX track. Make sure you drop by and say hi to the riders and checkout the 2015 Haro Clutch, Blackout and LT machines
Watch out for these young guns at a track near you, or you can follow them on twitter: Josh Samells tweets at @4jgs, Alex Wright @Alexwright115, Emily Macpherson @emilymacp3 and Nik Doyle @nicholasdoyle03
Read more updates on team Haro/LTP here.