Perseverance and dedication are two qualities that 11-year-old Jacob McGinnis has. He has been racing motocross since he was 7 years old, and this year he will compete at Loretta Lynn’s Ranch in the amateur national motocross championship.
In motocross, riders compete individually on off-road motorcycles. They race on dirt tracks with terrain that is uneven, and the races feature jumps, inclines, hairpin turns and mud.
An accomplishment that most riders only dream of has become a reality for Jacob, but it has not been an easy road. At the end of October 2024, he was training on a track that he had ridden many times. He switched bikes and hit the biggest jump on the track and came up short.
“Everybody at the track heard the thud of his bike hitting the ground. I see him; he’s still on his bike but kind of rolls over the landing, and when he starts going down the downside of the landing, he falls over,” said his father, Jason McGinnis.
People rushed to Jacob and his dad removed his boot. In that moment, Jason said he was almost certain that at least one of Jacob’s legs was broken. He was taken to the emergency room at TJ Health Columbia where x-rays confirmed that he had broken his tibia and fibula about 3 inches above the ankle in both legs.
Ashley McGinnis, Jacob’s mom, said that Jacob called her and told her he was on the way to the hospital, that he wrecked and was hurt. She met them at the hospital and realized he was in shock and both legs were swollen.
The x-rays were sent to Norton’s Children’s Hospital in Louisville and doctors there did not see a need for surgery. The McGinnises were able to take Jacob to Norton’s the next day.
Both legs were placed in casts and Jacob could not bear any weight on them for the first eight weeks. He was then in walking boots with the casts bearing minimal weight for four weeks and finally boots with no casts.
Jacob underwent physical therapy for three months. At the end of February, he was released. The day the doctor released him, the family drove from Louisville to Georgia for practice. Jacob had no hesitation about riding again.
“It wasn’t a race, it was practice all weekend at that track. So we did that and the very next weekend, his first race back, was an area qualifier and he qualified to go to regionals in that race,” said Ashley.
On average, there are around 60 racers competing in a motocross class, not only from the United States, but from Mexico, Canada, and Alaska as well. The top nine qualify to compete in regionals.
In regionals, riders race against the best of the best and only the top six advance to nationals. In mid-June, just nine months after his accident, Jacob claimed his ticket to the national competition.
“We have tried for years to qualify for this race and always seemed to come up a little short. The biggest thing with this sport is mental. As crazy as it sounds and what these kids do on a dirt bike, probably 95 percent of it is mental. He came off this injury with a whole new mentality,” said Jason.
Jacob was more determined than ever to get to the national race after the injury. Both of his parents said they could not take this away from him, even though it was difficult to see him with two broken legs.
“I wasn’t like, ‘This is it.’ I couldn’t break his spirit like that even though he is going to have broken bones. That’s just part of it. Every year it seems like there is some sort of injury, but I just hold my breath every gate drop,” Ashley said.
Jason added, “There is literally nothing else that matters to him. He isn’t into sports. He lives and breathes motocross and riding dirt bikes.”
His dad reflected on when motocross racing began. Jacob was five years old riding a dirt bike with training wheels around the house.
Jason always watched supercross motocross on the weekends and Jacob began asking when he could race. His dad told him that they would talk about it when he removed the training wheels. Jacob took the training wheels off, and a few weeks later, he competed in his first arena race.
“If I had known at the time where this was going and how involved we were going to be into this, I don’t know that I would have ever started it,” Jason said.
The support from family, friends, and the community has been humbling for the McGinnis family.
“The amount of people who have contacted us and said they would be there to watch him has been amazing,” said Jason.
According to MX Sports website, amateur and youth racers have been working hard, competing since February to qualify for the world’s largest and most prestigious amateur motocross race at the iconic Loretta Lynn Ranch in Hurricane Mills, Tenn.
Jacob will compete against 41 other racers in his class with a crowd of thousands of people watching. The race is held July 28-Aug. 2 and is also televised on RacerTV.
“Making it to Loretta’s is going to be an experience I will never forget,” said Jacob.
By Amy Pike
amy@adairvoice.com
