The humble club night is the most basic form of BMX meeting you can attend. It will likely be a very low-key and fun event, and lots of riders will be happy to socialise and have fun, rather than go 'hard out' and race till they drop! Club night meetings happen every week throughout the country's different clubs during the racing season, and ANYONE can ride at them. Club nights are where all riders start their BMX racing careers. You do not need to hold a BMX racing licence (see below) to attend a club night meeting, as most clubs allow casual riders to turn up and race if they want to. Some clubs (like us here at Waitakere BMX) often hold what they call "Points Night" race meeting where points are scored by each rider. Those points go to an end-of-year tally that is used for the club's own prizegiving.

Age groups are often combined at club meetings - and sometimes the bigger bikes and smaller bikes are run together - like I said, club nights are pretty low key. 

These are race meetings sanctioned by BMXNZ and published each year on the race calander. A calander meet is where a club runs a big event (at least, bigger than a club night) and opens up official entries to their event. These meetings require that you fill out an entry form prior to the event and pay more money than a standard club night to race. These meetings often have prizes available for riders and can sometimes host certain racing classes that have their own little competitions going (see "Crank-it Series" below). These events are normally fun events, but they can also be quite competitive events to be involved in.

A list of upcoming race meets can be found at https://bmxevents.nz/events/

These events include the National Championships itself, Regional Championships, North and South Island Championships and also what we call 'NQM' meetings. The term "N.Q.M." actually stands for "Nominated Qualifying Meeting". If you want to race at the New Zealand BMX Championships, you have to have competed in at least four N.Q.M. meetings in the prior calendar year to be eligible to compete at the New Zealand National Championships. These meetings are generally competitive events where you'll be wanting to be at your best in terms of performance (if you are a competitive rider who's not just in it for fun).

To qualify for the National Championships, you do not have to win races, or be the best of your age group, you simply have to compete at four NQM meetings and have competed in each of your four races at each meeting. Your results from those meetings are meaningless and will not count towards any 'rankings' or anything like that.

National Level meetings are more expensive than standard club meetings. If you're riding both 20" and Cruiser classes (see bike explanation below) then you'll have to pay two entries fees, one for each class you run.

The New Zealand National Championships are a one-event deal held over 2 days. There's no National Championship series or anything, it's all down to one meeting - down to one final even.

Just to confuse things further, sometimes "UCI" BMX race meetings are held as well (the UCI is "Union Cycliste Internationale" - the governing body of cycling sports). Those UCI meetings are normally held as part of a Regional or Island Championship. UCI meetings allow riders who want to go for UCI world rankings, to gain points towards their rankings. Think of this as the sort of meetings that Michael Bias and Sarah Walker have to turn up to in order to gain points towards qualifying for the Olympics or other internationally recognised competitions (that's not strictly true in the case of the Olympics, but I've used that as an example).

These are the big boys and girls of BMX racing. Essentially these are classes where anyone who is over the age of 16 (for Junior Elite) or 19 (for Senior Elite) can compete against one another. You don't actually need to have any specific qualifications to ride elite classes, but if you do ride them, you'll be expected to do some very big jumps.

The Elite classes often ride more tricky sections of the BMX tracks that have been set up especially for them. The elite rider's skill level is a lot higher than your average rider and many of us (myself included) would never even consider trying the jumps these competitors regularly compete on.

The Elite 'scene' in New Zealand is small, at any given meeting there is often less than ten riders in each Elite class. This is largely due to the extraordinary skill level required to be competitive at the Elite level.

If nothing else, the Elite classes can be the most spectacular races to watch, I never get used to the size of some of those jumps!

From time to time there will be competitions set up that allow for some of the standard challenge classes to combine. These classes are not normally "officially" recognised - so there's no National Championship for them. One such example is the "Crank-it Series" class. Although it is not an officially recognised National Championship class, competing in it at an NQM meeting will count as one of your NQM points. To put that in English, if I went to compete in the Crank-it series at an NQM meeting, I wouldn't have to ride in my age group class, as my entry in the Crank-it series would count towards either my 20" or Cruiser age group class (depending on the bike I rode). Basically, that happens because BMXNZ thinks that if you are riding your bike in a 'Special' class, you shouldn't have to ride a second class to make your NQM meeting count towards your total of four NQMs. It's hard enough riding one class let alone two.