Shelley teen goes to extreme racing nationals
Published at | Updated at
SHELLEY — A 17-year-old is headed to a national competition this week to ride in rugged terrain for a challenging and extreme off-road dirt bike race.
Tegan Warnick of Shelley has been in hard enduro dirt bike racing for the past two years. Hard enduro is what it sounds like. It’s difficult “enduro” or endurance racing. It can be brutal all the way to the finish line.
“If you think about it, (it is) mountain riding, basically no trail. They set a mark, and you try to make it there,” Warnick told EastIdahoNews.com.
A challenging course is laid out over rough terrain, and riders compete to see who can finish the course the fastest.
Watch below to see what hard enduro racing looks like.
“Many people probably won’t understand. If someone says, ‘Yeah, I race dirt bikes,’ they are thinking like motocross or supercross, where it’s more on TV, and everyone is like, ‘Oh yeah, I have watched that.’ This is definitely something to where they can’t get cameras out on the trail, and so it’s not TV friendly,” Warnick said. “It’s kind of more (that) you have to be there to see it and know it.”
Races can have obstacles like rocks, trees, steep hills, forests, sand and other difficult conditions.
Recently, Warnick was awarded the first-place plate in his age category for the Hard Enduro West Coast Series. The overall first-place plate is awarded to the rider who places in enough races during the season and who accumulates the most points. Warnick has raced in places like California, Arizona, Texas, and Kellogg, Idaho.
Now, he will head to nationals in Tennessee for “The Red Bull Tennessee Knockout Extreme Enduro” competition on Aug. 18 and 19. The races are about 10 to 14 miles long and can take hours to complete.
Since Warnick has only participated in races for the past two years, he has learned quickly. He is sponsored by Ogio, FXR Moto, ODI Grips, Mobius Braces, Acerbis and Action Sports Canopies.
“I am really excited because when I first started doing this, I kind of just was thinking that this would be a hobby that I would carry out through my whole life, not knowing that I would be the top of my class in the west and being able to go (to nationals),” Warnick said.
Warnick’s parents, Nicki and Troy, are proud of him.
None of his family members have competed in hard enduro, so he had to learn a lot on his own.
“Tegan had to do all of his own research, had to figure out how to become good at it and then this year we said, ‘You need to set a goal,’ and he said, ‘Well, I am going to set a goal to get to nationals,'” Nicki Warnick said. “I thought, ‘There’s no way. That’s a huge goal to do in just your second year.’
“I think it is pretty impressive that he put his mind to it and that he set a goal, and he went, and he got it,” she added.
The Shelley High School student said he has always loved riding. Nicki and Troy bought him a little 50cc dirt bike when he was 5.
“He used to just circle around the pasture for hours and hours on it, and then he would get bigger, and we would just keep moving him up bikes,” Nicki said.
Tegan taught himself how to do different jumps and how to use his bike through YouTube.
Nicki said they have property in their backyard in Shelley. She had a nice riding arena because she likes to ride horses. Two years ago, she lost it and it has transformed into a dirt bike track instead for her son.
“He asked if he could build a couple of jumps in it and I said sure. He’s constantly out building obstacles and doing a good job starting to learn how to conquer them, and then he breaks them down and builds brand new ones,” she said. “He has had to be 100% self-driven on his own and we’ve had to learn about the sport too with him.”
Tegan looks forward to competing in Tennessee just in a few short days. His family has grown closer, too, by traveling together for his competitions.
He has one year of high school left and hopes to continue racing.
“When you start doing it more and put your time and energy into it to where it’s like — you got a routine, workout plan, you kind of start watching how you eat — it becomes your life, almost. I want to take it as far as I can. If I can get to that pro level, that would be so amazing, but if not, it’s just something that I would love to carry my whole life,” Tegan said.
