This weekend sees the National 4X Champs and round five of the NPS 4X go down at Redhill Extreme. There seems to be an ever increasing number of young riders getting into 4X these days, most of them are pretty good, some of them are exceptional. Spank/Chicksands Race Team rider Elliott Simmons falls into the latter category. He turned up at Chicksands a couple of years ago riding a battered old BMX with bent forks. It wasn’t long before he started beating us locals in no-pedal races.
A little later on and he’d gone from sessioning the small eight-pack to pulling toboggans on the massive jam line. Then he started clearing the 28ft triple on the inside-line, which was thought of as pretty hardcore at the time. Gaining sponsorship and getting to the races, he immediately started posting results, causing havoc for the more established guys in his category. I took him over to Aston Hill for some downhill on our hardtails a few months back, it wasn’t long before he was leaving us regulars for dead. Maybe someone should give the kid a DH bike so he can win some races on that too.
Despite a niggling knee injury he’s back on the bike and looking forward to the weekend. Could he be the 2009 Junior National 4X Champion? Check out the photos and decide for yourself.
Elliot and fellow contender Max Lenthal share a moment.
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