Crossover kid!

We headed up to practice at the Salem indoor moto track at the fairgrounds last night for Marcus to get his roost on. He hasn't had much time on the bike as of late, the last time on a track was In September I believe. He also hasn't had much track time since switching from his four stroke 50 to the two stroke 65. He has been improving steadily but has usually been timid and slowly pushes himself to new comfort limits. We arrived at the track and did a walk through checking out the track before practice started. The arena is fairly small making for a tight track. I pointed him out a few sections that I thought he should push himself on. A triple step up, step down had a good run up and told him he should at least jump up the first step and a couple tables out of corners that were short enough even with little run up to try clearing. The rhythm section had a tall double into three small whoop style doubles. I was a little nervous for him with regard to the rhythm. He has had very little experience riding tight obstacles like that and the tight proximity of the corral fence along side the track and likely hood of "whiskey throttle" made me worry he might crash. He was in the first practice and the track was still freshly plowed and his typical timid approach got him around the track slowly at first but his lap times quickly became noticeably shorter. He even jumped the step up by the end of the round. Stoked! We have been racing BMX steadily lately and I'm not certain that's what has helped boost his confidence but I'm sure it hasn't hurt. In the second round he continued jumping the step and started consistently jumping one of the two tables. He also started jumping the first of the small whoop doubles in the rhythm after single, singling over the bigger double. He also started attempting the next double. Super stoked! By the third round he was tired and not sure he wanted to ride but went out again any way. He finally jumped the other table with the shortest run up but then crashed on the other looping out getting dragged along into the dirt. I figured he was tired and done then for sure. To my surprise he got up took a few more laps and even double, double, doubled out of the rhythm. Ecstatic! The above clip is one of his earlier attempts. Filming with my iphone was difficult with limited track access and poor angles so excuse the quality.