Bad Dad

This past weekend was supposed to be a BIG one for us BMX wise at our local SeaTac track. Saturday was a Redline Cup qualifier. Basically if you make your main event at any of the qualifiers, they have this one day race that all the qualifiers come and race at. From this day it’s a winner take all type of deal. If you win your main event at Redline Cup, then you get to roll a red number 1 on your plate for the next season. If you don’t win, you don’t get shit. Anyway, heaps of people showed up at SeaTac. Like 64 moto’s worth. It took 4 hours for them to go from sign ups to posting moto’s. Kind of brutal. Things worked out though. Milo made his main event and gets to race at the finals. I practiced but didn’t race as I was saving my comeback to bmx for the Sunday State race. You need 3 state races under your belt to qualify for a state number plate. So far I’ve taken little guy out to Yakima, so he’s got one down and 2 to go. Well with Sunday’s race, there are just 4 of these qualifiers left and Sunday was going to be my entrance back to the 41-45 Cruiser class. All that waiting around on Saturday made me think I was smart in Sundays planning. Got up, had coffee, pulled the bikes out of the rig and reworked them. Packed em back in, along with all the needed gear, a bag full of food for the day and last but not least a cooler. For some reason I never pack beers in the cooler on race day, but on Sunday I threw 4 bottled Pabsts in that bad boy. I’m figuring that since sign ups closed at 2:30 on Saturday, that we’d get to the track around that time on Sunday so the waiting around part would be at a minimum. We leave the house at noon and go to Greenlake skatepark for a little session. Mac and I are on our bikes hitting the jumps and Milo’s skating. At 2 I round the boys up to beat feet. We pull up at the track and shit’s looking mighty organized. Scratching my head I say “man that looks like moto’s are rolling.” Sure enough I hear “on the gate, 41-45 cruisers!” Fuck, that’s my class. I’m thinking they got shit rolling and first moto’s are going. No worries though, as long as I get in my second moto and have a good pull; I’ll make the main event. But Milo’s moto’s are always 5 – 10 after mine so I throw a helmet on him, no gloves or race pants and run up to the gate with his bike. He’s like “WTF Dad???!!!” Gate guy gives me a look and says “dude, Johan your moto just went off.” I come back with a “no worries, I’ll just spin it to win it next one.” “Uh no you won’t, it’s the second round dude, your out.” Crap, I look at Milo as he’s sitting there with no practice and there’s a couple of gate full of 8 intermediates and say “son, you NEED to get first or second to make it to the main.” “What if I don’t?” “Then I’m a bad Dad, so don’t worry about it. But go get a first or second ok?” His gate drops and lil guy is in last place coming out of the first corner. I’m like what the hell? Then it starts, he starts picking em off, one at a time till he’s in second place going into the last corner. Under the gun he made it, then in the main tangled up with the pack, got stuffed in a corner then came back to a respectable 5^th place. Not bad considering. And me...I figured that them four Pabst in bottles were packed for a reason.