On Saturday, June 3rd, Dutch MX athlete Luca Nijenhuis participated in MX Airtime, a straight rhythm motocross contest in Beckum, NL. We sat down with him between the qualification heats, moments before he won the contest.
I'm riding for the Kawasaki team Pfeil, a German team which is sponsored by Monster Energy and others. I'm riding a lot in Germany because motocross is much more profitable there! This is one of the few contests that I ride in the Netherlands, which is fun because I get to see a lot of familiar faces.
I have high expectations. I've been the fastest so far so those are positive signs. I hope to remain the fastest, that'll keep me satisfied!
And this event is special as well; normally there's just regular motocross contests where you get half an hour plus two laps around a circuit. MX Airtime is a 400 meter sprint, one on one. It's the only straight rhythm contest in Europe and I love it! Straight rhythm is a discipline which originates in the USA, which is just a straight line with a lot of jumps. Two riders battle next to each other and the first one to cross the finish line wins the heat. In our case, there's not enough space for a 200 meter straight line so there's one corner. Riders ride two times per heat, once on the outside- and once on the inside line. Whoever wins both laps wins the heat, if both riders win one lap there will be a third lap to decide who goes on to the next heat. MX Airtime is the only straight rhythm event in Europa and I like it a lot!
Initially, I used to only ride motocross and during the winter I'd participate in a few supercross races. Last year I participated in the German supercross series and I enjoyed it; I became third at the end and that was cool! Supercross is usually three months during the winter and the rest of the year I ride motocross. I hope to upgrade from 250CC to 450CC this year and want to ride the supercross series again in this class. That all still depends on the choices of my team but if they're down, I'm down!
We're about half way through the season right now. It's been going well until now, some ups and downs. The competition is a lot harder now that I've upgraded to MX1 and I'm in tenth place all over; it's been a year to further improve myself so I'm pretty satisfied with my ranking. And I haven't had any injuries yet so that's a great sign!
Practically every weekend is a German championship weekend so I'll be there! There's two main competitions in Germany; the ADAC MX Masters and the DMSB, which are the regular German championships. I'm in Germany almost every week, I'm traveling a lot but so far, it's always been fun.
This is the second edition of the contest and they've progressed a lot already! They're making the best of it each year and I've enjoyed both editions so far. I'm working hard to help them out with social posts and such, to improve their publicity. I really like the event and will surely be back next year!
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