04/04/2026
Another character-building weekend in North Carolina, but our buddy keeps rolling along! And we’re not done – we still have the Junior Animal A main!
Here’s a little recap of what’s gone down so far: 
Yesterday began with the Junior Honda heat race. He had two fantastic starts, but some cautions caused them to have to line up again.
After the second caution, he had another strong start, but the car behind him made contact at the start and did some damage (and ripped the number clean off his car! 😂🤦♀️). After some time in the pits, we couldn’t get the car back in time and had to miss the race. Officially a DNS. That meant Hyke would have to start in the 11th position of the C Main.
This morning, he had his C main, and moved from the 10th position, to the 9th, then up to the 7th… and we were getting so encouraged that a transfer to the B main might be possible after all! 
But… then a car spun out, there was a pile up with a few more cars, and Hyke came around a turn with  nowhere to go but straight into the wreck. He was fine, but his car was not.
We didn’t want him to go to the back of the line, so we pushed him off, hoping it would be OK. It wasn’t. 😂 His car was wonky and clearly hard to handle.
Still, he kept going and even initiated a pass. He had the inside line, but got squeezed out and went onto a turtle. He got the strike in this case (bummer) and would’ve gone to the back anyway, so Josh took the opportunity to try to fix the car in the pits. They couldn’t make the repair in time so they pushed him back out to finish the race.
He didn’t have his normal speed and didn’t have enough laps to do much. We’re not sure what the finishing order was because there was another little wreck and then the race timed out. We think he finished 7th? 8th? Who knows. He didn’t get to transfer to the B main though, so not a top four finish.
***Now onto the Junior Animal heat race (because we’ve got two cars now!):
This was another story of going to the pits, not getting a repair done in time, and racing anyway. 🤦♀️ (This time, it wasn’t because a car made contact with us – instead, the chain came off.)
Josh had some help in the pits attempting the repair, but there were differing ideas about what the best course of action was, and someone else ended up pushing the car out before the repair could even be finished. It’s hard – there’s always lots of help, but in the heat of the moment, things can get miscommunicated. Everyone had good intentions, but things like this just happen.
There was no way he could have done his best with (another) car that wasn’t where it needed to be, so he finished in the second to last spot.
But! Even still, he was sent to the A Main, and he’ll be starting in P10 out of 12 cars. We’ll take it! 😅
So while he definitely didn’t get a chance to do his best, it still worked out so he could get to race again.
And that’s the point of all of this! To get the seat time, the experience, and to build confidence and resilience. That’s the reason we do any of this stuff right?
(Well, and the whole getting to play with your friends on bikes, in the dirt, and in Easter egg hunts in between races doesn’t hurt either!)
Fingers crossed for as smoooooooooth a Junior Animal race for our little driver as possible! His confidence definitely needs it!
He goes on in the third race starting at about 2 PM Eastern. More updates soon! 
