Whangarei club hosting top BMX action on Labour Weekend

Whangarei BMX Club will host one of the biggest transtasman competitions in the sport on Labour Weekend.

The club will stage the 2017 BMX New Zealand North Island Titles, a multi-day event featuring the best riders.

This event has attracted about 500 to the region, with 27 racers coming from Australia.

Some of the country's top elite riders will be on deck, while New Zealand's and Australia's best 11-year-old riders will be pitted against each other in a test series known as the Mighty 11s.

The Mighty 11s traces its roots back to 1988, when a BMX club in Ipswich, Queensland invited every 11-year-old in Australia for a meet and 92 turned up.

Two years later, owing to the friendship between Ipswich club president Neville Gray and New Zealander Errol Nelson, the event expanded to become a transtasman cultural exchange.

Every June, around Queen's Birthday, a meet is held in Australia, and every October, around Labour Weekend, a meet is held in New Zealand, with eight riders from each country (four boys and four girls) billeted among the local community when overseas.

The Whangarei BMX Club has 29 riders competing at this event. Riders to watch out for will be the likes of recently crowned World No 6 and NZ No 1 Luke Brooke-Smith (9-year boys), Tyla Dinsdale (9-year boys), Lance Dinsdale (cruiser-male) and Jacques Chilese (cruiser-male).