adminCollin Matiza Sports Editor
ENTRIES have now opened for the country’s premier motorcyling event – the Zimbabwe Summer Series – which will be held at Donnybrook Raceway in Harare next month.
The Zimbabwe Summer Series is the season-ending motocross event which is held annually during the second week of December and it usually attracts top junior and senior riders from South Africa, Botswana, Zambia, Uganda, Kenya and some from overseas.
This year’s event will be held over three days on December 9, 11 and 13; and it will consist of two Supercross (night racing) meetings on the first two days of competition and one motocross meeting on the last day.
And it will be interesting to see if next month’s Zimbabwe Summer Series will be as excting as the 2015 FIM Africa Motocross of African Nations Championships which were held at Donnybrrok on August 29-30 this year.
The continental event had a record number of entries of over 200 top junior and senior motocross riders from seven countries – Botswana, Kenya, Uganda, South Africa, Swaziland, Zambia and the hosts Zimbabwe.
And most of the foreign riders who took part in the 2015 FIM Africa Motocross of African Nations Championships indicated soon after the end of the exciting competition that they were likely to return to Zimbabwe next month to compete in the Summer Series.
And their presence will once again bring some stiff competition to the local riders who also look forward to competing in this season-ending event at Donnybrook.
Most of the top local junior and senior riders fine-tuned themselves for next month’s Zimbabwe Summer Series when they took part in the last national championship event of the year in Bulawayo last weekend.
And they are all now bracing themselves up for some more stiff competition at the 2015 Zimbabwe Summer Series on December 9, 11 and 13 where they are likely to face strong opposition from riders from their traditional rivals South Africa.
Last year’s Summer Series attracted six riders from South Africa who were led by one of that country’s top bikers Michael Kok who was just a joy to watch during the three days of action and he is expected to return to Donnybrook for the same event next month.
Since entries for the 2015 Zimbabwe Summer Series opened at the beginning of this week, it’s still too early to ascertain how many foreign riders would be flying in for this event from Europe and the United States.
But Bernd Wulffen of the GeBe Education and Sports Foundation, a German non-profit making organisation which has links with a number of sport associations in Germany, indicated recently that he was working on getting a couple of riders from the European country for this year’s Zimbabwe Summer Series.
In August this year, the GeBe Foundation helped one of Zimbabwe’s top junior riders Daiyaan Manuel to go to Germany for a two-week training stint with two of that country’s top clubs RMC Reutlingen and MSC Waldkappel ahead of the FIM Africa Motocross of African Nations Championships.
Online Reporter