Easy rider
SUMMIT TWP — The first time Dash McMillin jumped on a motorcycle, he crashed into a tree.
“It was in the backyard ... I was 3 years old or something,” he said. “I didn't ride for a year after that.”
He's more than made up for lost time.
Now 7 and a second-grader at McQuistion Elementary, Dash competes in the age 7-8 50 cc class. He's raced in approximately 80 events over the past two years and won roughly half of them.
Dash's father, 40-year-old Shane McMillin of Summit Township, competed in supercross events for 16 years and won state championships at different levels.
“We took Dash to the track with us when he was little and he developed an interest in the sport,” McMillin said.
Dash admitted he wanted to compete in supercross beccause “my dad did it and it looked like fun.”
He also competes in elementary wrestling, but says supercross is his No. 1 sport.
He practices four or five days a week at Switchback's indoor facility during the cold-weather months. The outdoor season runs from the end of March through early November.
Dash competes in the Pennsylvania local series and his family travels up to four hours away to enter him in events.
“We're gone somewhere pretty much every weekend during the season,” McMillin said.
This weekend, they'll be going a little farther.
Dash's name has been randomly selected from a lottery of applications for the KTM Junior Supercross Challenge Saturday night at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta, Ga. He will compete in a three-lap exhibition race involving 15 7-8-year-olds during intermission of the Monster Energy AMA Supercross show that evening.
Dash will be competing against a rider from Altoona and riders from seven other states: North Carolina, South Carolina, Massachusetts, Illinois, New York, Florida, Ohio and Georgia.“I hope the competition is pretty hard because I'm really good,” Dash said with a wide grin on his face.The youth race will be televised at 7:30 p.m. that night on FOX Sports 1.Atlanta is the fifth of 10 KTM Junior Supercross Challenge events this year. Others are in Phoenix, Anaheim, Arlington (Texas), Indianapolis, Toronto, St. Louis, Houston and Las Vegas.Requirements for eligibility in the lottery for participation in the events include having had at least a year of competition, being no more than 52 inches tall or 70 pounds in weight and having above average grades in school.Shane McMillin suffered a broken leg and arm and broke his collarbone “maybe five or six times” during his racing career. Yet he has no problem with his son taking up the sport.Dash has already endured a pair of concussions.“It's not if you're going to get hurt, it's when you're going to get hurt,” Shane admitted. “It comes with the sport. But you can get hurt falling down a flight of steps. You live life.”Ruth McMillin, Dash's mother, supports her son's love for the sport as well.“Of course, I get nervous watching him ... He's crashed before and I cringe when it happens ... but he does very well and he's riding better and better,” she said. “He's learned how to set goals through doing this. He's self-confident and he's met a lot of new friends.“None of his friends in school do this, but he's met kids at different tracks. It's like NASCAR in the sense that racing is a family. Everyone is like family and we support each other.”Ruth said Dash favors the individual sports.“There's no teammates. He's the only one out there and it's up to him to get the job done,” she said. “He likes that.”
