So I got my 13 year old nephew into riding over the past two months after buying him a bike for his birthday. He decided he wanted to race like his uncles. We took him last night and signed him up at The Hill in Elgin IL. My nephew is small for a 13 year old, closer in size to the ten year olds. They bumped him up to 15 novi where the kids were about twice his size. He ended up taking third out of three, but he didn't give up. I'm still confused as to why they didn't bump the 12 novi kids to 13 novi, would make more sense to have kids race a kid a year older then to put a kid two years up into a class with kids twice his size. Thankful for total points though because my nephew didn't get discouraged after walking away with is third place ribbon and a huge smile on his face. We had to peel him off his bike after the races ended because he wanted to keep riding the track.

I will have some videos on youtube in the next few days that I will post so people can get an idea of the size difference. I was honestly shocked. My nephew looked like a 3 novi racing 17 novi. He wants to go at it again though. Let's hope he has his own class this saturday!

That's really awesome! I am glad he is racing. Sounds like is he hooked! Just tell him to keep in mind it's all about having fun and whatever place you come in doesn't matter. Just enjoy being a kid and racing for now!

I'm just proud that he didn't give up. Even when trailing by 15 feet after about the halfway mark, he was cranking his butt off. He even jumped a set of doubles in his first moto. I'm definitely a proud uncle. He had a blast for sure.

I can't wait to have kids or relatives in the sport and see them excelling. My girlfriend has started riding and it makes me so happy every time I see her get out there. She is getting better every single time she gets on her bike and man, it's awesome.

It is an awesome feeling, especially when you were the one teaching them and you see your lessons were followed and paid off.

(It helps in our situation to have a friend of the family that raced A-Pro for a long time hanging at the track to give pointers as well)

Frank Nuccio gave some seriously good advice to us about bike setup for my nephew. He was having trouble pumping and jumping and Frank suggested we angle his bars back a little more and flip his stem to give a little more bar height. What a difference that made. We see him out at the track on random days riding and he's always quick to give my nephew and me pointers on things we are doing right and wrong. I need all the help I can get after being out of the game for 15 years.

Congrats on getting a new one interested!!!!

Sounds like the 12 novi's already had a class formed and I'm assuming there were only 2 15's and they needed him to make a class.

That is exactly what happened. 12 Novi had three riders and 15 Novi had 2, so he got the short end of the stick. He didn't get discouraged though which is the main thing I'm proud of. He's one of those kids that likes to hit the reset button when he's losing video games. He kept trying though so that's what I'm the most impressed with.

I will update this thread after he races his own class on Saturday. I also figured out that I need to gear his bike a bit different. Elgin's track is all downhill and he was spinning pretty bad.

It's neat to see someone race for the first time and enjoy it!

Here's a pic of the proud kiddo...