"We had some of our loyal em-
ployees that like to ride dirt bikes
and like kids, that volunteered
to be the coaches the first year
of Malcolm Smith Kids Learn To
Ride Day. And that worked pretty
good. We were just limited by the
number of people that we could
tear away from the dealership for
that weekend and not leave the
dealership empty handed.
"We decided the next year
[2018] to reach out to the USMCA
to see if we could utilize some of
their professional coaches. That's how we got
into that whole partnership with them. For our
2018 event, a lot of their founding members came
out to that event—Jeff Emig was there, Jon-Erik
Burleson, Mark Blackwell (former MX National
Champion) were there as coaches. I think they
THE HANDS-ON APPROACH TO GROWING THE SPORT
P92
Feature
were there just to see what it was about, then this
last year [December 2019] the Kids Learn To Ride
Day became an opportunity for USMCA to put their
coaches in front of the parents."
At the December 2019 event, kids were kitted
out with gear, and parents remained behind the
One-on-one instruction shifted to a team effort once riders got going on the track.
Jason Raines' rig is a one-stop shop for Yamaha's Off-Road Demo Program.
