TAKING YOUR KID RACING
UP FRONT
How to be proud and terrified at the same time.
MARK HOYER
Watching my 8-year-old son Ian pull out onto the 1/8-mile cushion oval at Perris Raceway this year was a cocktail of pride and terror unlike anything I have yet experienced in life.
Ian got on a balance bike when he was about 18 months old. He’s never seen a training wheel. One day he was simply balancing on that little two-wheeled coaster bike. He made an easy transition to riding his first pedal bike because of it. My wife Jen (who is also a motorcycle rider) and I bought Ian a PW50 when he was 3, and he started riding it just shy of his fourth birthday.
We’ve been lucky to have the yard space for him to ride at our house over the past four years, so he’s gotten plenty of seat time. He’s eventually graduated to a Torrot El 2, a 1,500-watt ripper of an electric racebike, and has been shredding a Honda CRF110F over the last nine months.
The backyard oval is second or third gear, depending on pace, and Ian’s been doing it with good line choice and even some wheelspin. So I asked if he’d like to try heading out to Perris for the last race of the 2021 season.
He said yes.
I gulped a little, because racing is so intense. Also, I didn’t really know what we were getting into because after all these years, I’d never been to a Southern California Flat Track Association race out there. But racing is also magnificent, and Ian had never tried it.
We picked a class and found out that knobbies are OK on small bikes, so we packed up the bonestock CRF110 and headed out in the Cycle World Ford Transit van. The paddock was supportive, despite our lack of knowledge, so we lined Ian up for his first-ever taste of a full-size groomed dirt oval along with a bunch of other kids. Where the first thing I noticed was that most bikes in his practice were two-strokes, and also were on dirt track tires.
"Yeah, some of the kids are turning the same lap times as the adults!”
These kids were fast. Ian rode around as crackling 85cc racebikes went inside and outside of him at high closing speeds. The official who was letting bikes out on the track saw my face and came over to say, “Yeah, some of the kids are turning the same lap times as the adults!”
This was my real moment of terror and pride. Because even though it was his first time ever on the track, and despite getting strafed by super-speedy kids on race machines, Ian was absolutely steady and focused on riding. He ran the whole practice session without missing a beat.
After chatting with the organizers concerning relative pace and Ian’s inexperience, we were able to drop him a class. There were fewer riders and the speeds were lower (even though the bikes were still flat-track specific and modified) and Ian logged a clean, calm race, and increased his pace to boot. He finished fourth, just one spot off the podium, although it happened to be last.
So what? On the ride home Ian said it might have been the best day of his life. He also said he didn’t want to finish fourth again, so it looks like we may be building a racebike. Just as well, since we’re also building a racer.
In return, I’ll be taking lessons in calmness from him. I must say, I am very proud of his effort. See you on the podium next year?
