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Collin Matiza Sports Editor
DONNYBROOK Park — the home of local motorsport — will once again come alive this weekend when it hosts one of the biggest motorcycling events in Africa — the 2019 FIM Africa Motocross of African Nations Championships.

The two-day annual event, which will be held tomorrow and Sunday, has this year attracted a record entry of more than 200 junior and senior male and female riders from seven countries — Botswana, Kenya, Morocco, South Africa, Uganda, Zambia and the hosts Zimbabwe.

Uganda, with a strong team of 32 riders, and Morocco, who are fielding four of their top bikers, were the first teams to arrive in the country on Wednesday.

The two countries were expected to be joined by Zambia who were set to arrive in Harare late last night while South African riders are coming in batches.

The event’s media liaison officer, Jamie Kerwin, said everything is now on course and they are good to go and expecting a good turnout of both riders and spectators at Donnybrook during the two days of what is expected to be some high octane of motocross racing.

“We have so far received two countries, namely Uganda and Morocco, who have done all their paperwork and are now awaiting the competition. We have had some challenges (over the clearances of the visiting riders’ bikes with Zimra) but we sorted everything out, so the countries can come and enjoy the competition.

“There were a few challenges but we managed to get assurance that the bikes are strictly for the competition and will be returned once the competition is over.

“We are expecting Zambia this evening (last night) while the rest will come in on Friday (today) and we are hopeful that we will manage to complete all the paperwork before the races begin,” Kerwin said.

And with most of the hurdles cleared regarding the clearance of the visiting teams bikes, all is now set for the 2019 edition of the FIM Africa Motocross of African Nations Championships to rev off at Donnybrook Park in Harare tomorrow.

The event starts with the riders having some practice sessions which are set to start at 8am and ending at 1:34pm tomorrow before each class holds one heat in the afternoon.

Sunday will see a full day of action with the PeeWees (riders who are under the age of seven) opening the proceedings at around 7am and will be followed by the 50cc, 65cc, MX Lite, women’s heat, V&M  MX, 125cc, MX2 and MX1 in the morning session.

There will then be the official opening ceremony (Grand Parade) for all the riders from the seven competing countries at 8:30am.

From there on, it will be all systems go for the riders as they jostle for the top honours in their respective classes with racing expected to end at around 3:30pm and the overall winners of this year’s FIM Africa Motocross of African Nations Championships will be announced soon after.

“Generally, Saturday (tomorrow) will see riders getting the feel of the track in the morning during their practice sessions before the opening heats of each class gets underway in the afternoon and then on Sunday it will be an all action day, starting from as early as 7am until late in the afternoon. So, it is going to be a great day of racing for both the riders and spectators,” said Yasmin Manuel, one of the event’s organisers.