The highs - and lows - of kids motocross racing and a HUGE learning curve!
We've always been against Harley racing motocross... but lately he started showing a real interest and asked if he could race his KTM 50sx! We said 'no' to racing the KTM... we felt he just wasn't ready and we knew this race would be pretty fast... so we agreed to enter him into the PW50 race.
2.5 WEEKS TO GO: At the time of entering him into the Madeley round of Lucas Oil (Tom Arnold) race on 11th April we didn't even have a PW bike for him to ride. A friend of Harleys dad offered to loan us his sons (Leo Morrell) bike to use, which we accepted then we felt bad because we know how much this bike means to him in sentimental value... and couldn't face damaging it.
2 WEEKS TO GO: We bought a PW for Harley... we spent a solid hour heating up the previous child's stickers using a hairdryer and pulling them off (SO STICKY) and then his daddy came home from work, showed him a photo of Travis Steward (@Travis953 on Insta and KZfaq) wicked white PW from 2021 so that was that we needed new plastics, Harley wanted white 🤣. Plastics arrived April 17th ... which we fitted, he got in 2 rides on the 'finished' bike (just awaiting graphics).
1 WEEK TO GO: On April 20th Harleys dad encouraged one of Harleys other good friends Parky (@parky_2016 on insta) to have a ride on it and the front end washed out on him... bye bye front fender, and the throttle cable (that was a tad dodgy already) ended up hanging on by a thread... by now it was 8 days til we left for the racing... and a second set of plastics and throttle cables were on order. *SIDE NOTE - it says '1day to go' on the edit when the fender gets snapped. It's a typo, it should say '1 week to go'
1 DAY TO GO: The day we were leaving!!!!
10am April 28th: the postie turned up in the morning with Harleys second set of white plastics, the throttle cable (mark 2 as the first one we ordered just didn't fit) and some neon pink grips... but no sign of the graphics.
11am: Leo's dad (@leo_morrall20 on Insta) popped over ours to fit the new throttle cable and help out with the plastics etc.
11.45am: We spoke to the designer at RACESHOP DESIGNS UK to find out how the graphics were being sent to us and he got them sent up to us by an UBER driver to ensure we had them for the race!!! Talk about customer service to sort it out!!!!!
12pm: Realised the seat cover was THAT bad we needed someone with skill to fit it... CTC Upholstery in Coventry (www.ctcupholstery.co.uk) stepped in with half an hour to go before closing for the bank holiday weekend they got it done... phew!
2pm: UBER driver arrived with the graphics!!!! Woooo!!
4pm: Graphics fitted... now time to load the van
7pm: A touch late setting off... Go, go go!
9pm: Arrived in Madeley, Telford... staying at the M54 services... only to discover there are 2 Madeleys... and we were at the wrong one. We should have been at Madeley Staffordshire! We were soooo tired at this point we just set an alarm for 6am and went to bed.
RACE DAY: 6am we got up and started the 1 hour drive to the right Madeley... and it didn't look good for driving into a field with the rain coming down... we pulled in just after 7am, made it across the first field and got over confident with how much grip we had. We tried to drive up a slight hill. Where the wheels started spinning out was pretty much our parking spot for the weekend (though HUGE thanks to the guys who pushed us back a bit so we weren't totally blocking the road in/out!!)
Harley went for a track walk with his daddy while I made breakfast... it seemed like time was flying by as we were suddenly rushing to get his pads, kit and boots on and to the line for his warm up lap.
When Tom shouts GO.. it's go! I had no idea that the warm up lap happened JUST before the race - and first back from the warm up got first gate pick. Harley, by some miracle, was first round - he wanted the same gate again. In his races he got an OK start - he did it all on PW power... some kids got a boost off a parent. Each to their own, the boost got the PW moving much better but me personally? I'd rather Harley learned how to get out of the gate for himself. Oh and we also quickly learned Harley doesn't like to overtake :p Something he sure needs to work on but he was pleased with how he did :)
At the end of day one of racing, while the adults cooked dinner on the BBQ or in their campers/caravans, the kids all played football, cycled about and even played practice races at the gates - they all had the biggest smiles! THIS was what I'd heard most about the Tom Arnold race series... the kids LOVE the time they get to spend together and the adults all got time to chat :)
DAY TWO - the rain started. As did a little bit of adult foul play! It wasn't all bad - the tricky riding conditions also saw many many awesome parents step up to help. (@huntercruise22 parents for rescues and @tejay_rider13 dads cheering!)
#mx