"I love the heat," smiles Szoke. "The hotter and more humid the better. I was a bit worried that I hadn't prepared as much as I would have liked to but I really wanted to ride the first event. We hurried home from pre season testing at Canadian Tire Motorsports Park to get here."

Szoke blasted off the line to catch the lead early up the first climb. Reaping the rewards of the work put in on the first uphill he set forth to stretch out his lead on the fast and treacherous downhill. "I knew I had to put some really hard laps in, particularly on the downhills, so I put my head down and pushed as hard as I could," says Szoke.

Disaster struck as he hit some loose gravel at the bottom ending up in an impressive fall. Gear, rider and machine went flying over the loose fire road. Szoke quickly gathered himself and his equipment up to remount. As Szoke clipped in, second place raced by as the rest of the group pressed in from behind.

When asked about his fall Szoke replied, "I found myself with a ton of traffic coming following us so I really had my hands full."

In amongst some of Southern Ontario's best MTB racers Szoke was nipped at the line to finish a still impressive third place.

"I tried super hard to pull a gap on the rest of the field but as we came up on some lapping traffic. The opportunity to pull some time was really difficult. I'm still pretty pumped about my result, it was a really exciting race, and I'm ok after my fall. I can't wait to put some more hours in training after our first National Road Racing Event in June. I'll have a few weeks in between races so I plan on stepping it up a notch."