I was laying on the ground, head throbbing and body shivering, only not from the cold.  In most moments like these you are not knowledgeable to the extent of danger that you are in, or how safe you really are.  I’m talking about one of my few passions, motocross of course.  Yes, it’s one of the most dangerous activities you can participate in, but in return is one of the most thrilling and rewarding experiences known to mankind.  The limits are endless of what is accomplishable and just when people start to doubt that, somebody comes along to prove them wrong.  I like most people involved, started very young.  The very first memory I have on a bike is that with my father.  He planted the seed in me that would stay strong for so far a decade and a half.
“Alright son, make sure you take it easy”, my dad explains to me while I swing my leg over my bike for the first time ever.  Even at age 3, I remember how eager I was to get going and my mother behind me struggling to get the video camera going was just making me that more impatient.  So there I was, with my brand new helmet and boots on, a pair of my dad's work gloves that had been cut down so they would fit me, jeans and a shirt and that was all I needed to finally experience this thrill I had been craving ever since I had ridden with my dad for the first time.  And I was off!...for about 5 seconds anyways.  I was in the ditch of my driveway on the ground and no longer on the bike.  I had mastered my pedal bike without training wheels but two wheels with a motor is a completely different story.  I was not expecting the speed I was delivered and fell right off of my driveway, this would be the first of many times I have donated blood to the sport. Later that week I would go on to smash head first into the barn and total the bike my father purchased for me while I was in my mother's womb.
This sport unlike most is high risk, high reward. After multiple years of practice, you would finally have the experience to really experience the true beauty of the sport.  Being upwards of 40 feet in the air becomes second nature.  Maneuvering a 200 pound combination of metal, rubber, and plastic requires strength and stamina to hold on for long durations of time.  Motocross delivers intense adrenaline every time you swing a leg over the bike, and especially when you try something new.  It has been my drug for as long as I can remember.
My passion burned so bright that I would ride from dawn to dusk most days of the week and race on the weekends.  The only thing that could keep me away were broken bones but even every time I was laying on the ground, head throbbing and body shivering, everything in me wanted to get back up and keep going.  Unfortunately not everything goes as planned.
It was sumer of 2006 and I was my best ever. I had four state championships under my belt and I was qualified for my first national event when everything went wrong.  I had not known the details of my parents relationship.  little did I know that their relationship would come to an end and so would my racing and overall riding in general for the better part of a decade.  When my dad left he sold all ten of my current bikes, two of which I earned from my sponsorship from a company called Rock River. My whole life at the time was sold and blown out in vegas.  My father ended up moving to Florida and my mother tried to support my racing but as a single mother supporting four children it just wasn’t possible at the time.
The next eight years of my life would be spent off the bike living a rather normal life, which at first I was really upset with but a few years later I would grow accustom to. I would watch all of the videos over and over again but would no longer attend the races even as a spectator.
Come my 16th birthday I would finally be able to get back to my passion that never died in me.  I was gifted an old truck that would get me to my summer job where I would work at the racetracks that I had so desperately missed. I also took up a landscaping job to scrape up enough money to eventually buy not only a new bike but also a truck suitable for hauling the bike around.
“Can we go look at this bike?” I would ask my stepfather every day for the next month or so before we finally agreed on a bike that we would later that night go and purchase. It had been eight years, or roughly 3,000 days since I had been on a bike and the night that I came home with my new bike was one of the happiest of my life, mainly because I knew how long I had waited for.
To this day it has been just a little over a year since I brought home the first bike I had had in eight years.  Since then I sold the first one to buy a near new bike and I have attended races pretty regularly.  I will never be at the level that I once was.  To make it in the sport you must start at a very young age and never stop, and also be very lucky with health and financial status.  I really wish I could have seen how differently my life would have been had I never stopped. Still my passion burns furiously and I will make sure that motocross is always in my life in one form or another.  Lately I have taken on videography which is defined as the process or art of making video films.
“You’re really good at this!” words of encouragement from my mother, which gets me thinking about videography as a career option, and the best part, I get to stay involved with the sport I love so much. I could watch people and shoot people riding all day just as I could be riding myself.  I am also very blessed to have a stepfather that is also part of the sport and supports me.  I was even lucky enough to end up living in a home with suitable land to build another course to ride on which my new stepfather built for me and my little brother, who also rides.
It’s truly incredible how pieces all fall into place somehow and even though I didn’t get exactly what I wanted out of motocross, I am still happier then I have been in quite some time and I couldn’t be more content. When you are truly passionate about something, that passion will always stay with you through thick and thin. For me that passion involves two wheels and a motor, and it’s called motocross.