What to know about the motocross competition at Pueblo's Honor Farm MX Park this weekend

Gear up for a wild ride this weekend, Pueblo. An event that's becoming a local sports tradition has returned.

The Rocky Mountain Riders Association's 2023 District 25 motocross event will take place at Honor Farm MX Park, with gates opening Friday, April 21, and the main event set to take place Sunday, April 23.

The event is $15 per person to attend and children under 5 years old are free. The gate fee is a one-time expense, so those who attend should make sure to hold onto their ticket for access all weekend long.

What to know about the RMRA and this weekend's event

The RMRA is a nonprofit organization that works with local racetracks in Colorado, Wyoming and New Mexico. It is sanctioned by the American Motorcyclist Association (AMA) and works with local tracks to put on races throughout the region.

The Pueblo series has been hosted since 2018 at the Honor Farm MX Park. Jeff Greenwood is the man in charge of putting the event on in Pueblo. He said he's excited to see the outcome of the 2023 event.

“This is big for Pueblo. We get more spectators out here than most of the other tracks in Colorado,” Greenwood said. “It’s kind of a destination since we only do this once a year.”

The track itself takes a long time to put together for an event like this and Greenwood said he and his staff work tirelessly the week before to get it up and running. His hope is that events like this will eventually lead to more racing events at the track and that more Puebloans will get involved in the sport.

“I think it's still big, we have a lot of young, fast kids from Pueblo, and several local industry companies are based here in Pueblo and Pueblo West,” Greenwood said. “We’ve been doing this since 2018 and we have progressively increased our racers here at every event. It would be helpful to have something like this open all the time to get more local kids into it.”

Greenwood has helped put the Pueblo event on for the past five years after taking over the facilities at Honor Farm. This year, the event is expected to have close to 600 participants and anywhere between 3,000 and 4,000 spectators, most of whom will come from out of town.

While attending, guests will have full access to the track and the racers as well, which is one really unique aspect of this event. There will also be a food truck and vendors.

Saturday night will be a special night as there are several different races taking place, including pit bikes, strider bikes, E-bikes, and one of Greenwood's favorites, the "MotoMom" class.

“The practices are fun to watch, and Saturday evening we do special events,” Greenwood said. “We do pit bike races and then they started this one called the ‘MotoMom’ class in which all the kids that race have their moms race. So it's kind of fun.”

Sunday will be the main event with practices starting about 7 a.m., and the event expected to run to about 5 p.m. It’s a fun family day with lots of activities and things to check out around the park.

For more information about the event, visit the Honor Farm Motocross Park Facebook page.

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How do events like RMRA motocross help Pueblo's economy?

In addition to providing a fun and entertaining event to the community, the motocross competition also has a significant economic impact on the city of Pueblo. As a result, the Greater Pueblo Chamber of Commerce is seeking to attract more events like it in the future.

“Our City Council really struggles to recognize the impact of lodging dollars and what that does for Pueblo,” said chamber president and CEO Duane Nava. “What I mean by that is we collect when someone comes in from out of town and I think last year we collected $1.7 million in lodging tax. And what we do is we put a large percentage of that back into the community as far as advertising and selling Pueblo to outside visitors in order to drive tourism in our city.”

Even a small, three-day event like this weekend's motocross competition results in out of town visitors lodging, dining at local restaurants and seeking entertainment at Pueblo businesses.

Nava said the chamber also is in the process of organizing a new Pueblo Sports Tourism Division Advisory Council to maximize such opportunities and bring more sporting events to Pueblo in the future.

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Christopher Abdelmalek is a sports reporter for the Pueblo Chieftain and can be reached at cabdelmalek@gannett.com or on Twitter: @chowebacca.

This article originally appeared on The Pueblo Chieftain: What to know about this weekend's motocross event in Pueblo