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Collin Matiza Sports Editor
THE country’s premier motorcycling event – the Zimbabwe Summer Series – bursts into life today with the staging of one of the two Supercross (night racing) meetings that have been lined-up for this annual event at Donnybrook in Harare.
Tonight’s Supercross race meeting will be followed by another one on Friday at Donnybrook before this year’s Zimbabwe Summer Series draws to a close with a full day of motocross action at the same venue on Sunday. And thousands of Zimbabwean motorsport enthusiasts are once again expected to throng Donnybrook during the three days to watch some of the country’s top junior and senior motocross riders battling for the top honours with a number of foreign bikers who will also be taking part in this exciting event.
Leading the cast of foreign riders who have confirmed their participation at the Summer Series will be Jeffrey Meurs, the 2010 Dutch national champion, and Botswana’s Ross Branch who will both be joined on the track by other visiting bikers from Belgium, Germany, South Africa and Zambia.
While Meurs will be making his debut appearance in the Zimbabwe Summer Series, Botswana’s top rider Branch is no stranger to the track at Donnybrook, having competed there regularly for the past couple of years and he will be one of the star attractions at this week’s event.
Branch competes in the main MX1 Class in which he will be facing some of Zimbabwe’s top riders such as Joshua and Broc Thomas, Cole Bond, Ashley and Cameron Thixton; and Craig Archenoul in both the Supercross and motocross races tonight, on Friday night and on Sunday.
With Zimbabwe’s champion rider Jayden Ashwell still recuperating from a leg injury he sustained a couple of months ago while competing in the Monster Energy South African National Championship series, competition in the MX1 Class is wide open and anyone from the above mentioned riders could walk away with the title at the close of business on the last day of the series on Sunday.
Former professional rider Sean Mitchell is also expected to feature in this year’s Zimbabwe Summer Series at Donnybrook. He will be riding his Honda machine. Some close battles are also expected in the 65cc A Class in which Zimbabwe boasts of quite a good number of talented young riders who always light up the track with some breathtaking jumps.
Anyone of these promising young Zimbabwean riders – Kuda Mhene (Jnr), Big “BJ” Chitima (Jnr), Daiyaan Manuel, Ryan Masimo, Reagan Evans, Ricky Whyte, Taine Chapman, Tristan Versfeld, Justin Musariri and Jordan Chapman – can walk away with the 65cc A title on Sunday. The country’s top female rider Tanya Muzinda (10) also competes with the boys in the 65cc A Class and it could be interesting to see how she will handle the pressure in this “star-studded field” during this Series.
Muzinda will take to the track this week after she recently entered into a co-branding partnership with Harare Central Hospital in which she will portray and inspire an image to “Thrive Beyond Illness” to the sick children and the community at large.
This opportunity, according to her handlers, will bring more visibility to both the hospital and Team Tanya within our community and internationally.
“To begin the 2016 campaign, we will be hosting a fund-raising Christmas dinner, in collaboration with Dominion Innovative Creative and Harare Children’s Hospital, to begin engaging the community before year end. The funds will go towards a Christmas brunch which will be held at the children’s hospital (at Harare Central Hospital) to support the paediatric patient population admitted on December 25, 2015, and give hope on a day when everyone else is celebrating (the birth of Jesus Christ) while they are in hospital due to illness,” according to a press statement released by Muzinda’s handlers yesterday.
It is through this initiative that Muzinda is also expected to receive a lot of support on and off the track during this week’s Zimbabwe Summer Series in which she will be joined by one of the country’s most promising riders, nine-year-old Emmanuel Bako.
Bako this year missed winning the South African National Championship series’ 50cc Pro title by a whisker and he is a safe bet to win the 50cc title at this year’s Zimbabwe Summer Series in a class in which he will be racing against the likes of fellow young Zimbabwean riders Travis da Silva, Jordan Dewdney, Scott Hewer, Lee Chigumba, Ryan Wasmuth, Declan Barrett, Tyler Chapman and Munyaradzi Bako.
Emmanuel Bako will be mounting his brand new KTM bike which was recently donated to him by a local water drilling and mining company, Prolific Boreholes.
Another promising young Zimbabwean rider Regan Wasmuth should also walk away with the 125cc title after having impressed throughout the year in this class but he could face some stiff competition from his teammates Joshua Goby, Nicholas Fremantle, Liam Robinson, Bradley Perry, Alexander John, Nyasha Musariri, John Evans and Ryan Webb.
Action in today’s opening night of the Zimbabwe Summer Series starts at 6pm and the entry fee has been pegged at $5 per person, while children under the age of 12 will pay $2.
There will be full bar and catering during all the three days of competition.
Online Reporter