Thoughts on why our sport is great for youth riders. These may not be in the exact same order as it applies you your experience but these are some of the key things our sport helps young riders develop. As you will read, these bullet points are inter-connected and all have important rolls in this journey. Missing one or more, makes it almost impossible to succeed.  Tonight’s Trax  Winter Series Banquet was smaller but the things these kids did this winter were amazing.  Here is how I look at it.

1. Individualism, riders compete, perform with instruction, but they have to succeed and or fail by what they individually accomplish. Show me a strong rider, I will suspect they are a strong individual as well.

2. Responsibility, riders develop a vast amount of responsibility at a young age to be able to ride and or race.  Simple things lead to bigger and more broad scope as they improve.  They learn quick if they don’t cross their “T’s” and dot their “I’s” it will affect them.

3. Competition, this is the vehicle that makes many of these points possible, and also leads to great competition successes or failures. Once it has wheels, or wheels and a motor you will race the other one, competition is inherent to all of this and feeds it.

4. Determination, it teaches a rider young or old, what it means to stay focused.  Without determination most all the rest will end short of ones goals. Many call this “stubborn”, what ever you call it, it’s the force behind most champions.

5. Pride, this comes from achieving many of the things needed to ride or race, you see it on children’s faces every time.  In fact adults will be beaming as well.  These bullet points apply to all ages. Nothing replaces the pride one feels as they meet their goals.

6. Accomplishment, this is the product of the process.  It’ shows what can happened when a rider puts their mind to following through.  It teaches them how to set goals and attain them.

7. Friendships, this is huge! We always here about schools and religious gatherings and how they form lasting influences and also friendships.  In my 48+ years in this sport, the vast quantity and quality of friendships is second to none.  What is so big about this point, is it crosses all social, economic, ethnic barriers! Friends who ride together normally are friends for a very long time!

8. Organization, to get through a basic day a rider has to organize their time, their machines, and all the things that brings it together. From maintaining the bike, getting their gear ready, having all the tools to do the job and then developing a plan to make it easier as it goes forward.  Sure kids have parents doing most of this and that is exactly how they learn to make this process happen.  It’s never too early to let little one clean their boots, or wash their machine.  Supervision and instruction makes them achieve all the things on this list!

9. Mechanical knowledge, riding, racing involves a machine, which at one point or another will break, when it does you have to know what is wrong, how to fix it, and even if it stays together, you have to maintain it to keep it viable.  As riders get older they learn this has a direct impact to their success.  What happens as a nice bi-product?  They learn to fix things themselves, solve problems mechanically, and this will last a life time.

10. Confidence, how does anyone do well? It starts with building confidence.  You see many riders trying to do this in many ways.  The bottom line there is no short cuts to this achievement. You have to beat the best to be the best.  That’s the racing angle.  The riding angle comes from just completing many tasks in a fun and safe manner.  This inspires riders in all aspects of their life and lasts as long.

11. Driving skills and aptitude, double edge sword with this one. Racers at a young age learn to compete and beat the competitor next to them.  Problem is they get so good at it when it comes to the ripe old age of 16 it’s hard to turn off those engrained processes.  This can be very expensive!  All joking aside, when a child learns to ride, they learn throttle control, more then likely they can drive a “manual” LOLOLOLOL  as most of us really know it as a “stick”.  They can judge corner speed, braking distances, and all other facets of handling a motorized vehicle.  Power sliding in a snow covered parking lot enters into this as well we all go there, even into our 60’s!

12. Toughness.  Durability.  Fortitude, now hopefully I haven’t bored you to tears.  But if you ride off road, you will be tougher then most, mainly because you will hit the ground. When you do it will sting, if not darn right hurt, this will happen many times. You will develop a “Durability” over time because of these encounters.  All the above will hopefully keep most of this part of the game shorter but once you get tough, and you become durable, it is all because of the Fortitude .

These are the things that I have witnessed over all these years, as many of you know I have watched your parents ride, hell even grandparents.  As you develop your abilities rest assured these things are character building and will last your whole life.  They say living a life behind “bars” is tough, well this life might be, but it’s a hell of a ride and a ton of fun.  Never forget the journey, it is what made you who you are today…………………………   I may add to this in the future, but for now something to think about.   wardy