Hello Everyone:
    I have been chosen to write about us. We are the Thompson family and I am the Mom. Kevin and I have five boys; Justin-22, Kyle-20, Jay-19, Jeffrey-16 and Cole who is 10. The boys all race motocycles as did their Grandfather, Uncles, and Dad. Unfortunately Although I fought desperately for them to never race as you can see, I lost that battle.
We started out as many of you did by just racing once a month at the local tracks, then twice a month, next we needed a trailer, then a motorhome. Soon everyone needed two bikes; one for practice and one for race day. Before you knew it we were going every weekend and as they say the rest is history. I have come to realize after several years of worry and actually hating the sport that I have finally in the last two years started to appreciate the tremendous benefits of it. They did a study on teenage children and the amount of time that they actually spend talking to their parents in a week and it was 30 minutes. Now that is sad. As a race parent you know how much time it takes to drive to and from a race and although I talk all the time I allow them to get the odd word in.
    We have a lot of fun with our kids and a ton of laughs but then again I have never met a motocross kid that wasn't a great kid. They seem to have a respect for each other different from any other sport. Its funny because you will see kids that have battled it out all season long become the best of friends. I think the respect for each other comes from the fact that motocross is such a tremendously demanding sport and everyone realizes how much work it takes to do well. As a Mom I watch the Pro Nationals from the sidelines and after 30 minutes of

just watching I am drained. My hat goes off to each and every one of you who throws their leg over a bike to race or even just ride!
    I think I am supposed to write about our Motocross School (Mxschools.com). We had this brainstorm about 2 years ago but we didn't have any money to do it. Well we are up and running now and we still don't have the money to do it. As all you motocross parents know that if you have any racers in the family then you also have no money left at the end of race season. We need to do a Visa commercial, for my family it would run like this:

Gate Fee:	$ 60.00
Entry Fee:	$160.00 (4 kids @ 2 classes each)
Food & gas:	$100.00
Waterproof cast:	$ 85.00

TIME SPENT WITH THE FAMILY; PRICELESS.
    Back to the school details; our whole family runs the school with Justin, Kyle and Jay as our head instructors, Jeffrey does our videos which each child gets to take home at the end of the week. My Mom and I do all the cooking and Cole is our Demo-man. We got to meet tons of great kids and their parents this past summer. Some kids gave their parents such a hard time on Fridays when they came to pick them up that we had some of them stay on with us for 2 or 3 weeks. We are always amazed by how much they learn in a week and their confidence level goes through the roof. It truly is a fun-filled week. Adam Chambers, Dan Rachmel, and Kyle Davis also help with the lessons and the track maintenance. Doug Dehaan and Chuck Mesley also make visits here all year round but it is especially nice when they show up on the school weeks and meet the kids. Justin has put pictures of the lodge on the website and explained about the tracks.

The kids are always chaperoned and never get bored here as there is so much to do. We hope to see some of you next year either at the school or at the tracks. Also if any of you are heading to Florida for the winter we will be at Countyline Racetrack ( Countylinemx.net). The track is north of Panama City and is a great place for a family motocross vacation. Justin has been flying back and forth there for the last couple of months to help them out with their Fall series. It's a very safe and fun track with hook-ups for motorhomes and in the month of March it is full of Canadians. Hope to see you there!

God Bless and stay safe and healthy!

Momma "T"