Girls rule!

The year 2012 was a benchmark year for this racing family.  This was the year that my daughters started racing.  They started riding in 2010 with some very shaky rides on a Yamaha TTR50 which they shared.  Luckily, that motorcycle had seen better days and was used to being slightly abused.  Let’s just say that the concept of braking was lost on these girls for the first several attempts.  In fact, there is a commemorative dent in their grandpa’s Mule to mark the occasion on which Katie “forgot” where the brakes were. 

 Thankfully, my husband is a patient man.  As I shuttered with fear and literally convulsed several times watching my babies bravely attempt what comes so naturally to their brother, my husband merely yelled instructions and encouragement to his newest pupils, with the occasional dejected head shake thrown in for good measure.  Watching Cael race is nerve-wracking.  But I have gotten used to it for the most part.  Watching the girls ride is a whole different level of horror for me as a mother.  I am not sexist.  I believe girls can do pretty much whatever boys can do and in a lot of cases, we can do it better.  And I believe that my girls have become very tough and resilient from years of dealing with their not-so-gentle brother.  But, (yes, BUT!), when I watched them learning to ride motorcycles, my heart was hammering out of my chest  and my hands shook with the need to whisk them away to some much safer activity, like sitting calmly in a padded room with nothing sharp and no moving parts.  I almost collapsed with relief when their practice session was over.

The second year of riding was much better than the first year of riding, for the girls and for me.  For one thing, Katie and Kallie grew a couple of inches over the winter and got stronger, too.  It also helped that they had finally figured out how to use the brakes!  Knowing how to ride a motorcycle gave them a new confidence and a sense of pride that was not there before.  For my part, I started taking high doses of Valium before each practice session.  Just kidding. 

So after one more year of learning the basics and practicing, the girls competed in their first hillclimb race in June 2012.  The week before the first race, the girls were so excited they could barely sleep at night.  They each had their own motorcycle by now, which they had promptly given names.  Kallie named her Yamaha motorcycle Yoko and Katie named her Honda Hailey.  The excitement continued…until we got to the race.  Then the fear and nervousness set in.  Their previously joyful faces quickly turned serious.  Possibly for the first time in their lives, they got quiet.  They were close to tears as they put their riding gear on.  Thankfully, their class was second so they didn’t have much time to ponder their fates. 

 They nervously watched the four wheelers tackle the hill and soon, it was their turn.  With three kids all in the same class, we had to recruit some help from some of our hillclimb friends.  My husband stayed at the bottom of the hill and got the girls ready for their first runs.  Our helpers stood ready to help the girls and their bikes down the hill.  Katie was the first to tackle the hill and after she went, my nerves calmed down a little.  Of course, they did fine and they were so excited and proud of themselves.  They were the only girls in their class that day and they did not finish last.  The man handing out trophies overheard us telling the girls what a great job they did in their first race.  He was kind and considerate enough to find some trophies for Katie and Kallie.  You would have thought those trophies were made of gold.  The girls could not have been happier and I could not have been prouder of them.  They competed several more times that summer and got better every time.  It is probably just a crazy coincidence, but I noticed a couple of gray hairs in the mirror recently!