-Haro Vet Pro Chad Roberts wins his first pro race of his career. The win took place in Nellis Nevada at Silver State National. All the top Elite Masters were in force. Guys like Kyomi Waller, Jason Carnes, Darin Mitchell, Terry Tennette, TJ Johnson and Drew Downey to name a few. With gusty winds of excess of 40mph and a technical track Haro’s Vet Pro was able to holeshot and lead start to finish. Although not one of the smoothest laps he has ever done it was enough to get the job done. What made this day so special. First Chad’s day started out bad when his Shimano equipped SX Pro was stolen out of the back of his rental car. With the help of team manager Tony D. and fellow racer Leo Garcia, Chad was able to get a stock, YES that is right, STOCK SX Pro bike. Chad was able to put some SAINT cranks on it and Kenda tires and get exactly 3 laps of practice to get to know the track and bike. Chad came out swinging all the way to 1st place. WHAT A TRIP!!!! Man, the ups and downs don’t get any better than that. The new white NO FEAR gear was exceptionally cool.
Chad fills us in on the rest of the HARO racing team: Derek Betcher got 3rd in the UCI race that weekend. Greg Romero made a strong showing. In Phoenix this past weekend I choked and didn’t do so hot considered after my win. I crashed the next day really hard and I was not 100% going into Phoenix. No mains but I looked good, ha, ha. Betcher kept eating it by himself. A couple of times in first place. Romero RULED. He was the only AA to make all the mains and he was in the top 4 in every class and was able to get on the podium in class and open on Sunday. -Daniel Dhers rode a contest in Brazil and got 2nd. He is currently in Argentina and rode some late night street session which gathered around 80 bike riders from all over the city (Buenos Aires). That was a big posse of BMX-ers. Daniel will be be going to Greenville early May for a month, then CFB in Oklahoma and then Woodward for the summer....
-Los Reyes Del Mambo is a dirt event that takes place in Barcelona, Spain. HARO Bikes is the main sponsor and will donate two top prizes for the winners.
-UK's Ben Hennon is back on the bike and Camp Woodward is calling for a week of practice to get ready for the new season. Hennon means business.-Over in Austria Senad Grosic did a demo in a Soccer Stadium in Salzburg and said it was awesome. Senad has been busy shooting photos with David Ulrich for an upcoming HARO advertisement.
-The Mini-FAT-JAM took place in Aarle-Rixtel, The Netherlands earlier this month and Haro donated a box of prizes to keep the kids happy. Check the report on the HARO Bikes website to see the kids jump on HARO bikes. On 29 April next Louis Verwimp B.V. (HARO Benelux) will be present at the Oranje festivities in their hometown Valkenswaard. A vert ramp and BMX track will be on hands for all to try. Verwimp B.V. had a successful Open House at their facilities at end of last month.
-Over in Spain Jose Carlos Gallardo picks up a ride from HARO and steered his Pro XL to a podium already at round 2 of the Spanish championships in Padul, Granada. Here's more on the deal:Spanish rising star Jose Carlos Gallardo, 20 and Badajoz local, just signed an one year contract with BMX icon brand HARO through its Spanish distributor, Canary Islands based MARKA. JC Gallardo was selected for his riding style, cool image and relationship. Those are key factors to promote HARO product successfully and JC owns all of them. The Gallardo 2006 Tour includes the Spanish BMX Championship ( 4 rounds), Spanish Clubs League ( 6 rounds), and the European BMX Championship with 5 continental events. J.C. will race Elite 20", where he stands #5 on the Spanish Ranking, and Elite 24", where he will try to improve his #2. His main goal is to get the UCI points that open the World's entry, and head to Sao Paulo (Brasil). Haro has sent JC two ultimate tools: a HARO SX pro XL, and a Haro XL Cruiser.
-Benjamin Shenker is getting about on crutches. He did a photoshoot for a sports mag. Fortunately they already had riding pics from a few months back. Ben is also doing a promo thing for his friend who is opening up a bike shop, selling HARO's too.-Four of the five Haro riders have been selected as Pre-Qualified athletes for the 2006 Dew Tour. Colin MacKay, Rob Darden, Luke Parslow and Ryan Nyquist are all in for Dirt while Colin, Rob and Ryan are in for Park. Daniel Dhers didn’t have the chance to attend the Dew Tour last year, so he’s the only one who’s left to qualify, and brand manager Tony D. doesn’t think that’s going to be an issue.
-Over in the North of Italy the first round of the Swiss/German BMX championships took place. Swiss HARO rider Marco Siegrist scored a 4th place in the combined Junior/Elite men class.
-To get an idea of how BMX freestyle looked back in the day, [url=http://youtube.com/watch?v=9WmEgWi6mPo] click this link for a Bob Haro freestyle display.[/url] - Here's some news from Ben Shenker out of Budapest, Hungary:
The Danube has flooded, so the city is blocked with traffic and water eveyday. Looks good actually, I'm just going out to take some pics. I still have the screws in my ankle, 1 more week though and I'm good to go. I've been doing physical therapy all the way along, so I should be okay to ride in the next couple weeks.
In the meantime I got some coverage for some sport mags, one of them being the Hungarian version of Men's Health. It's gonna be a pretty big article, I even pretended to jump on a rail for a pic. It felt really stupid as I can't even walk...also I was answering questions about what muscles do I use the most for riding and what can the average cyclist learn from bmx-ers...tailwhips and flips maybe?
I've also been setting up the RedBull Backyard Digger in Hungary. As of events, I'll be doing the RB BYD at the end of May, beginning of June, and will do some shows before that too. I'll be at Urban and then to all the comps here in Europe. But all this doesn't really matter, as I'm going mad not riding my bike.
For more info check www.harobikes.com
BdJ
Pics: Ryan Nyquist/BMX Mania/Charaba/BdJ/HARO Spain
After doing a BMX 'zine for ten years (1987 - 1996) FATBMX made it on the internet. The year was 1998. Here to stay.