3rd Annual Verano Festival BMX Invitational Race
Bogota, Columbia August 13-14, 2005

For the past 3 years, each August, a group of USA BMX pros have been invited down to Bogota, Columbia to compete in a special BMX race event. The first year, it was formed to mark a celebration of the life of Mario Soto, one of the most promising BMX stars to come out of Columbia, who was tragically killed in 2001. The event has grown greatly over the past 3 years, and this years BMX pros were brought over to compete and be honored at the BMX Festival.
The local Government of Bogota funds the local BMX program and holds this event during a huge celebration in the city, on the city's anniversary of foundation. The track itself is inside one of the coolest spots for a BMX track, it is inside a sports complex that also host a velodrome, soccer fields, baseball fields, dirt jumps, vert ramps, track and field, swimming pools, and much more. With what seemed like the entire city of Bogota in attendance, the overall event had huge crowds and made the atmosphere for this BMX race very impressive.
The group of riders invited was quite impressive. Randy Stumpfhauser, Cristian Becerine, Matt Pohlkamp, Jason Richardson, Greg Romero, Nate Berkhiemer, Paul Lange, Donny Robinson, and Medhi Remili were the group of Elite riders that made the trip to Columbia with the addition of Justin Kosman from Twenty BMX Magazine and Pete Dylewski from Intense BMX/ Double A Marketing.
The event kicked off with an impressive opening ceremony in front of 10,000 fans and each of the riders in attendance from each country was introduced. After the National Army Band played and the balloons for each country were released, it was time to hit the track and have the Elite only race start.
The event was run a bit differently than races here in the USA, as it was only 8 motos of Elite riders and that the results from each day would go towards the overall ranking and awards for the weekend of racing. After each round of moto, the riders were given 20 minutes to rest up and get ready for the next round. This made the day a shorter version and a made the race action a lot better to watch, as it was only the Elite riders on the track.
As the race action kicked off the Pros put on a great show, with impressive looking rides from all of the invited riders.

Here are some of the race highlights-

Cristian Becerine was unstoppable, as he was the winner of the race each day, taking home the overall title for the 2nd year in a row. South America is quite different from the USA, as even though it looks close on the map, Cristian's home country of Argentina was a 8 hour flight away. If you wanted to drive to Argentina, it would take about 3 weeks, as there aren't through highways and many mountains regions.

Jason Richardson was also very consistent, as he was one of the few riders, to make the main event both days. Jason finished up 3rd on day one and 2nd on day 2, giving him the sub champion spot for the overall. Jason is one of the best people to travel the world with, as he is fluent in a few different languages and has a deep fan base world wide.

Greg Romero was the other rider from the group to make the main event both days, but his "sauce" ran out each day in the main event, as he finished up 8th each day. Greg made the trip a lot of fun as he was always thanking the fans and race organizers for putting together such a great event and always letting you know just how he felt.

Randy Stumpfhauser has some bad luck each day as he didn't make the main event either day. Randy had a lot of fans eager to see him and even thought he didn't do his usual on the track, he did his best to make each of the Stumpy fans remember his trip to Bogota in 2005.

Nate Berkhiemer is turning into the new Wildman, as he keep the crowd on their feet with impressive speed as well as always laying down impressive style and busting out back flips during the race and practice. Nate is know internationally known as MR. Backflip.

Matt Pohlkamp is always a threat to win, but has a reputation at the Columbia race to crash in the first turn. Well Matt didn't let his fans down this year, as he crashed in the semi on Saturday while leading in the first turn. On Sunday, he had it past the first turn and into the main event.

Donny Robinson must have emptied out his garage before he made the trip down to Columbia. As all the pros brought items from their sponsors to give away, Donny loaded up his double wide bike box with a ton of items to give away from his 20 or so sponsors and give the fans something to get wild about.

Its all about the fans, and there was plenty of them in Bogota.

Overall, this was one great event and I know all the riders were excited and honored to attend. With more events like this worldwide popping up all the time, its helping take BMX racing to the next level and getting people that much more excited for racing. I would like to thank German Medina for putting this whole event together and I know that all the riders will look forward to attending this great event again next year!