The Mini O’s event dates back to 1972 and have grown into the single biggest and longest motocross event of all, with somewhere around 7,000 entries, lasting from last Saturday’s SX practice until tomorrow’s MX conclusion. There are not actually 7,000 individual riders, as each participant can enter three or four classes in each discipline. They run from practically dusk until dawn to get all of the motos in. Gatorback Cycle Park has been the longtime host of the event, and riders and their families pack the place for nearly a dozen days. It’s come a long way from the event that started out at the old Jacksonville Speedway and began with three disciplines: motocross, flat track, and hare scrambles. Jeff Ward traveled with his parents from California to Florida for that first event, which was sanctioned by the old NMA (National Minicycle Association). Ward was just 10 years old at the time, but his name was already on the motocross map due to his cameo appearance riding a wheelie in the film On Any Sunday.
Now the Mini O’s are pretty much mandatory for every top prospect in the sport, as all of the amateur support teams are there. It’s also an American motocross tradition, with the holiday tie-in of Thanksgiving adding depth to the event, just as July Fourth does for RedBud.
I’ve been trying to listen and watch throughout the week, and I feel like I could recite the sponsor list of many of the top kids. The race offers a glimpse of what we’ll be seeing next year, so it’s pretty much both the last big amateur race of the year as well as the first of a new season. It’s also usually where the fast kids make their debuts on new teams or on bigger motorcycles as they get older and progress. For instance, Triumph got its first-ever Mini O’s win with their new amateur standout Deacon Denno. He beat new Kawasaki Team Green rider Kade Johnson in the 250 A SX final, continuing his hot streak that started with two titles at the Monster Energy AMA Amateur National Motocross Championship at Loretta Lynn’s Ranch back in early August, riding 250 B and Schoolboy 2 on KTMs. The very fast Dutch girl Lotte Van Drunen, a two-time WMX World Champion, is also there. She was supposed to compete last year but ended up getting injured while preparing for the race in Georgia. It was cool watching her battle with the girls from WMX here in the United States of America, though #1 rider Lachlan Turner was absent from the track due to a back injury. And Raycin Kyler, the first girl to win an AMA Amateur National Motocross Championship against the boys, is right in there battling for podiums in the 85cc classes.
There are too many fast kids at the Mini O’s who are on their way to a professional career to list here, but we did a feature in the souvenir yearbook we produced for the event about some of the current professionals that have Mini O’s results on their resume that you can check out here.
Also, we teamed up with Yamaha to produce a coloring book insert to give the kids something to do between motos. If you’ve got moto kids in your household, you can print these out and give them something fun to color.