Marathon Weekend has, for more than a decade, served as a great opportunity to “pre-practice” for the upcoming NBL Grands. This year, with some fairly-extensive modifications to the third straight, many (423, to be exact) felt that the organized practice on Thursday and Friday of the Grands would not substitute for an actual race-day, race-speeds run through, and nearly three days of at-will trial and error passes. Thus, you had license plates in the Derby City parking lot from as far away as Georgia, Florida, South Carolina, North Carolina, Iowa, and Michigan—as well as tons of closer-in states like Ohio, Tennessee, Indiana and Illinois.

You might be wondering why they call it “Marathon” weekend. We were wondering the same, and were half-way expecting a river of runners, lumbering through the streets, hydrating and huffing. Not so. The “Marathon” part of the equation stems from those two-and-a-half-days of all-out gates and straights, centered around four “local” races (which just happen to have the likes of Cole Tesar, Tommy Zula, Chase Hines, Jordan Ryan, Damian Cherepko and Kyle McRory in the gate next to the locals). This year, three distinct events (the third running of the Marathon Weekend Pro-Am, as well as the addition of the No Bull Classic V, and the Bill Drake Memorial) were woven in to Saturday’s program, to make for a very exciting and eventful day of BMX Racing.

Marathon Weekend Pro-Am. With over $3000 in prize money up for grabs, four racks of hungry hopefuls made it down to Derby City. The day started with time trials, which would be the key to moto and gate selection for the day. Matt Pohlkamp won it with a 31.83 second lap, setting the table for the rest of the day’s racing. It was a battle royale in the first round, as Tommy Zula started it out with a win aboard his new DK, then Pohlkamp in rack two (over Jeff Upshaw) and Weston Pope in rack three. Second round, Matt was leading Jeff again, until the last turn, when Upshizzle dove for a last-turn pass, and did some mighty-fine manualing down the final straight to hold the lead all the way home.

After a three and a half hour rain delay, which put the pinch on the festivities mid-way through the second round of motos, the main was set, with the top four contenders, in a brief “around the base of the tower” poll, being (alphabetically) Pohlkamp, Pope, Upshaw and Zula. And it almost finished that way, too…

Matt had the holeshot, and led the race pretty much wire to wire. Still, Weston was not making it a cake walk for him, and was within striking distance a time or two, before Matt stretched it out in the third straight. Into the last turn, Upshaw did with Upshaw does: set up a pass-dive, and snatched the lead from Pope. It was a classic drag race for second, with Jeff looking like he was 99.5% in control as he “manually” made his way to the stripe. That other .5%—the part that may have been just a little out of control—could have been the mojo that made it happen, as it was a very close silver/bronze situation, and Weston deserves props for keeping the heat on full tilt. And Tommy Z in for the well-executed fourth place. We can’t help but think that the Single-As will soon have a picture of Tommy on their bathroom mirror, Rocky style, as the man to beat.

More on Marathon Weekend, including a report on the No Bull Classic V, and the Bill Drake Memorial, Sunday night on BMXNEWS.COM.

Meanwhile, check out the Photo Gallery from Saturday.