High stakes, action, and adrenaline are all drivers of sports, but nothing compares to that of the endurance, blood, sweat, and tears put into motocross. Many different sports and extracurricular activities are offered, although there are some activities that are not offered, such as motocross. There are a select few that are taking part in this such as: Park High juniors Kyzer Kostoff and Liam Lannan, and sophomores Max Smith and Bryce Townsend.
All four of these students have been riding for a majority of their lives, overcoming many obstacles along the way, and are now competing in the CMMX(Central Montana Motocross) circuit and two have been competing to get to the Loretta’s Junior nationals race.
Injuries have riddled these fours’ racing journeys, from broken ankles to collarbones. There was no shortage of subject matter when asked to list off the injuries in the interviews as Lannan said “I’ve had two broken feet, broken wrist, collarbone, and dislocated shoulder.” Townsend also suffered an arm injury at the last race a few weeks ago. Injuries are prominent in the sport of motocross and there are precautionary actions taken to minimize the severity of injuries.
Lannan explained that his training regimen consists of four days of workouts with moto practices incorporated.
These four aren’t just racing in Montana; they have attended races in Washington, Oklahoma, California, Georgia, Wyoming, Texas, and North Dakota. Lannan said “I finished school in August” as it was a struggle to focus on BYU school work when he could have been riding his dirtbike first semester of his freshman year.
Lannan and Smith were both trying to get to Loretta’s, in Hurricane Mills, Tennessee last year, but with a slough of technical difficulties for the both of them they didn’t quite make it. Although Liam said that the fourth place qualifying spot was and still is within grasp. Loretta’s is the most prestigious junior category race in the nation. Liam made it through the area qualifiers at Bunker Hill and Shepard. Then at regionals his bike shut off mid air causing his crash. That put him into surgery then a two to three month recovery window that he just got through a few weeks ago. Max, on the other hand, didn’t have bad crashes but instead had technical difficulties with his suspension at regionals that led to a bad start and horrible moto at regionals.
