A big part of my life has been the sports I have been involved in. My first passion I had for a sport was racing bikes. When I was young, my father raised me for the most part. He had a great impact on my life because of all the time that we would spend together. It was sort of like we were best pals. I would go to work with him and draw pictures by his side all day long because that is what he did. I wanted to be like my dad. He was the best architect in the world as far as I was concerned. My adoration for him was great with his work, but my favorite thing my dad did was race motorcycles. I wanted to be an accomplished rider and go on to race some day, following in my role model’s footsteps.
One day my opportunity came and the chance was right in front of me. I had grown an interest for riding bikes and I did it every day. I built jumps with my friends across the street from my home and loved every second of it. I was a fanatic. I had a subscription to the most popular B.M.X. bike-racing magazine and memorized every published paper that company produced. It was my life and my dad supported me completely. My main goal was wanting to race just like dad when he was young, but my only thing keeping me back was a proper race bike. I wanted one so incredibly bad. I did research on the bikes memorizing all the companies, parts, prices, specifications, and ratings. We would go out to the track to watch the racers. My dad would always talk to them and ask them questions about bikes to learn about the sport.
Then I found my first true love. It was the Auburn CR-20RX, the top rated bike for the past 3 years. I wanted one more than anything a 10 year old could want in life. My dad was so patient and dedicated as a parent that we would spend long days about three days of the week driving around Phoenix stopping at every bike shop in the city. I am not sure if you have ever been to Phoenix, but there is a lot of bike stores. Shop after shop, I could not find my bike because this was not your “run of the mill” bicycle. It was a sheer racing machine not meant for your average neighborhood boy. This bike was special.
One day we were out looking around and as I fumbled through the phone book. I came across a new bike store we had never visited. I wrote the address down and we were on our way. On our approach of the store, its appearance was not promising at first sight. It looked like a typical mountain bike store, not a B.M.X. shop. Entering the store, I immediately proceeded to the back where the smaller bikes were. To my complete amazement I found a brand new Auburn CR-20RX exactly like the one I wanted. It stood in the display rack beckoning me to ride it. It was beautiful, love at first sight. The search was finally over and we took the bike home. That was the beginning of my B.M.X. bike-racing career. That bike eventually took me to second place in the nation in my race class fulfilling my dreams of becoming a racer.