If you are ever near Albany Georgia, the hometown of Ray Charles and Ray Stevens you will find a lot of sites to see. The Riverquarium, the Veteran’s Park, the bike and pedestrian path down the Flint near the Civic Center and one of the best places to visit is the Parks at Chehaw.

The Parks at Chehaw often just referred to as Chehaw by the locals is a unique park where you can picnic, camp, go to the zoo, ride the train, camp or even Race your BMX bike on one of the newest old tracks in Georgia.

In fact if you decide to race in Albany at Chehaw BMX, you will be racing with some of the best riders in the State of Georgia. You see team Chehaw took 1st Place for the Day at the Georgia State Championships and 3rd place for the year overall.

The BMX Track was host to both a Georgia State Qualifier and the Georgia State Championship in 2009. It is an NBL Sanctioned Track and was rebuilt in 2009. The track has been doing quite well the past 7 years under the direction of Ricky Lawrence. Ricky has been the track director for several years now and has vowed that even though he was stepping down as track director he would still be around the track to help out. Seems this BMX thing gets in your blood. BMX was not really around much when I was growing up, since it really didn’t start until the mid 70′s and really didn’t take on in a real big way for several years. My son was born in 76 and even as he was growing up it had not really matured to the point it is now.

Our two grandson’s Jason 10 and Kevin 8 both race BMX Bikes with Chehaw BMX as their home track. Jason and Kevin both took 3rd place trophies in their respective brackets at the State Championship in October 2009.

Just in case you don’t know much about BMX, I am going to explain how it works. When I took Jason to his first race as an 8 year old, yes this will be his 3rd year racing, I really didn’t know much about how it works, how it was scored or anything really accept that they raced the bikes around a track with hills built in and corners so they had to have some good handling skills.

BMX is Bicycle Moto Cross, after MX or Moto Cross done on motor bikes. Now we also have Cyclo Cross which is another take off MX but with bigger bikes and for the most part older participants.

A Race consists of 3 Motos, but if for some reason such as bad weather they can only get in two motos there is an option called a 2 moto transfer where your finish is based on your placement in the 2 motos that were complete and the 3rd moto is thrown out. Scoring can get real tricky sometimes because of birthdays many riders will ride in a different category at the State Finals then they do during the year. Jason competed all year until August as a 9 year old then August and September and the State Finals as a 10 year old. Kevin competed as a 7 year old right up until the State Championship and had to compete with 8 year olds in the championship. His birthday is October 1, and the State Championship was October 3rd.

It does get confusing but it always seems to workout and it is tremendous fun for the kids. BMX is unique in many ways.

By: Jerry Goodwin