Youth Sports: Bird Rock BMXers Ride to Victory

Dashiel Richardson, Drake Richardson and Quinn Parker represented the Bird Rock BMXers team in British Columbia over Mother’s Day weekend at the Canadian/USABMX National Race.

The boys, parents and grandparents who made the long trip to Chilliwack, British Columbia (50 miles east of Vancouver) had their hands full against the top riders from Canada and the United States.

At the Saturday races, the team had a slow start and a crash in the first turn. The day ended with Quinn winning fourth place and Drake winding up with a sixth place out of eight final riders in the 5-year-old novice class race.

Sunday was a better day for the team, both 5-year-olds qualified for the main event, beating out more than 20 kids in the process. Determined not to get tangled up with the same Canadian team that gave them such a hard time the previous day, Quinn and Drake raced out of the gate and into the front at the start. During the nail-biting 50-second race around the big track, consisting of six-foot jumps and 12-foot corners, the two riders went from first place to third.

In front of a few thousand screaming fans in very dramatic fashion, the boys raced around the last turn. Quinn went high into the turn and Drake went low, and as they raced down the last straight with less than a bike length separating them. They crossed the finish line with Drake in first and Quinn in second place. A great win/win by both riders for all Bird Rock BMXers!

Quinn and Drake have been lifelong friends. Quinn is a kindergartener at All Hallows Academy and Drake at Bird Rock Elementary. Both boys have been riding bikes without training wheels since age 2. Their parents, Shawn and Britta Richardson, and Joe and Felicia Parker, couldn’t be more proud of their accomplishments.

A side note, Drake’s brother, Dashiel, won the first place trophy on the same track in Canada as a 7-year-old Intermediate rider on the same day, on the same bicycle exactly two years earlier, also on Mother’s Day.

The Bird Rock BMXers consist of a dozen boys and girls, ages 5-12, novice to expert class. The team is sponsored by California Bicycle (7462 La Jolla Blvd.) Bird Rock Coffee Roasters (5627 La Jolla Blvd.) BOX, Promax, Answer BMX, and MSR. For the past five years, they have been racing at BMX tracks across Southern California, Arizona and Colorado.

BMX (bicycle moto cross) is an Olympic sport sanctioned and governed by America Bicycle Association (ABA) and BMX Canada. Riders compete on dirt tracks that begin at a starting gate and race over jumps and around turns to a finish line. Riders race in different classes, separated by age and proficiency.

San Diego is home to three ABA BMX tracks: Kearny MesaBMX, Cactus Park BMX in Santee, and the Olympic Training Center in Chula Vista.