Saturday, September 11, 2010

JDRF ride (Riley's race)

Riley's story (from Riley's parents, Sean and Judy);
Our son was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes in June 2008 when he was 10. At first he was really crushed seeing as he felt he had enough to deal with with his asthma. He was really down until the JDRF (Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation) sent him their "bag of hope" which holds a bunch of new daily necessities for a diabetic, such as a meter, a carb counting book, a specialized pocket for insulin, and of course a teddy bear. They also sent in someone to share their message of hope. Someone who was also a type 1 diabetic, who let our son Riley know that he wasn't alone. The minute that the JDRF representative left Riley turned to us with a big smile and said that he wanted to do that. He wanted to be the one to bring the hope!

That's how this race came about. Riley rides motocross and of course, wanted to bring his message of hope while on his bike. So we contacted Tooele County and shared our story with them and they enthusiastically agreed to sponsor a race at Deseret Peak for the JDRF!

You can learn more about Riley and the JDRF at this website;
http://www.type1racing.webs.com/

These pics are from this years race held today, September 11 2010







I don't know much about motocross, so I just walked around and talked to some of the riders and snapped pics when I could.














This rider was waiting at the staging area for a practice time to start. I noticed the long hair as I walked up and asked if they could do a 'wheelie' that I could get a picture of. When the rider replied "sure!" I could tell the rider was female.

We bombed at the wheelie pic, but later I ran into her in the spectator section, and got this pic! This is Chandler, a 17 year old motocross racer.









Chandler again, at this point was second place in the race.

Last lap, Chandler being pressed by the third place rider...

And...as it goes sometimes Chandler went down with about 1/4 lap to go and ended up finishing near last. She gave it a game effort and I'm certain will do better in the next race.



What was the best thing about the races? Spending time with family! Here is my granddaughter, Kimber.

2 comments:

Bluekat said...

Inspiring story and nice photos of the race. I've never been to a motocross event myself. They sure do catch some air! Nice to see the girls riding too.

Kaybi said...

It was such a fun afternoon. I'm looking forward to next year.