Finishes, falls, and bittersweet wins

Small Fry-A man with a plan

Big Fry and Gate Buddy-warning story below may cause lump in your throat.

We ended our 4 day marathon of racing. It was an overall great weekend, no rain, a little too much heat and sun, but we all survived. Small Fry had all his tough Aberdeen competition make the trek over. He struggled but made it to the main races and on Sunday kicked it into gear, which meant taking a fall in the final race and getting some serious track/road rush and disappointment. When this kid makes a "goal" and visualizes what he is going to do, he can hardly stand it when he doesn't.

Big Fry is finally after 5 years of racing moving up from Novice to Intermediate. This change usually takes most kids one summer-even Small Fry is an intermediate already. The kid is RACING. Handle bar to handle bar, and pedaling hard. It has been wonderful. He racked up his 8th and final win to move on at the Saturday evening race. It didn't come without a lump in the throat.

Before the Saturday races we had a moment of silence for an out of state racer, aged 13, who passed away 3 weeks ago, his brother was there racing. As the day goes on Big Fry introduces me to a kid he met the night before, they become gate buddies. Somehow I come to find out he is the brother of the 13 year old. The first race they come flying and he wrecks, the second race he heads out and falls again. Each time he comes back to his family crying. I can hardly stand it. I remind Alec to be a good sport. We finish the morning race and Big Fry gets his second to last win needed and we head to the other track. We are talking about his new gate buddy and how sad it is etc. Silence fills the truck, I can hear him thinking. He says, "I really want that last win tonight.", I already know what he is going to say, "But I almost want him to have it more." That my friends is sportmanship and true emapathy. I would like to say Big Fry DIDN'T get that last win-He did. I could tell it weighed on him heavily. This morning his friend said, "Thanks for moving up, I can get that other guy today, now that you are gone!"

He did.