Great Lakes Motocross and District 14 announce new Michigan Motocross program for 2009

BUCHANAN, Mich., (Oct. 10, 2008) – Seven Michigan motocross facilities announced today they have banded together to form Great Lakes Motocross in order to serve the competition base in Michigan and surrounding states in 2009 and beyond.  Modeled after the highly successful National Promoters Group (NPG) organization, the newly-formed Great Lakes Motocross team (GLMX) is comprised of seven premier competition motocross facilities in Michigan, including: RedBud (Buchanan), Baja MX (Millington), Dutch Sport Park (Bloomingdale), Freelin MX (Marlette), Grattan Raceway Park (Belding), Log Road MX (Bronson) and Big Air Motocross (Newaygo).

GLMX founder Amy Ritchie (RedBud), who’s family produces and promotes the nation’s largest professional motocross event – the Monster Energy/Kawasaki RedBud MX National – saw a need for furthering the professionalism associated with amateur motocross racing, both dirt bike and ATV, here in Michigan and looked to her fellow track-owning colleagues across the state to form this team.

“We formed the Great Lakes Motocross team to create a peer group of professional promoters that will share information in order to produce the best events possible,” said Ritchie. “While the promoters take care of running the events, the GLMX team will promote the series. We’ll work to attain new sponsorships and bring more benefits to the series racers, like a big prize-filled awards banquet in early December, manufacturer contingencies, self-registration, an up-to-date news website with current results, photos, feature stories and much more.”

The GLMX season will include two points championships: The Michigan Mafia Championship Series, running April 4 through July 26, 2009, as well as the Michigan State Championship, August 1 through November 1.

“The goal is to provide something for everyone – from the once-a-month racer, to the beginner, to the every-weekend-diehard,” added Ritchie. “One of the main GLMX initiatives will be to increase rider attendance. If you’re going to travel a distance to a race track you want to know there’ll be a decent number of riders in your class. GLMX will build a schedule that makes sense and will promote the series in order to draw more riders, not only from Michigan but from the entire Great Lakes region.

While the GLMX tracks are developing their own competition series, AMA’s District 14 will continue with its long-standing racing heritage in Michigan. Said District 14 President Alex Manga: “It’s time for the professional motocross promoters to branch off and build their series. The GLMX promoters will remain District 14 charter promoters and will run AMA sanctioned events, they’ll just be running their own points program. The traditional MX club tracks will continue to host unique and fun AMA/District 14 motocross events and have an annual points fund of their own.  We certainly see it as a win/win situation for both parties.”

Future plans for District 14 include a joint annual awards banquet for all the competition divisions.  Added Manga, “A combined banquet will make us closer as a competition club as a whole.” Note: It will be business as usual for other District 14 divisions such as hare scrambles, hillclimb, ice racing and dirt track events.

Finally, Manga also announced that the DFCC board will work diligently to reduce its annual membership fee to make this an easy transition for the riders. “The last thing any of us want to do is make racing in Michigan more expensive,” he said.

GLMX is in the process of constructing its website (www.greatlakesmotocross.com).  In the meantime, those with questions are encouraged to email Amy Ritchie at info@redbudmx.com. 

Information on District 14 can be found at www.ama-d14.org.