Third-grader is already a decorated motocross rider
By Clay Light
Nov 05, 2007
Bend’s Jesse West isn’t much different from any other 8-year-old.
Jesse is a multiple-sport athlete who enjoys basketball and snowboarding. His primary focus, though, is on motocross, a sport at which he hopes someday to compete professionally.
A third-grader at High Lakes Elementary School, Jesse hopes to in 2008 be the next Central Oregon motocross competitor to make his mark nationally, following in the footsteps of Powell Butte’s Chris Alldredge.
At the moment, however, Jesse is satisfied to sit back and reflect upon his recent accomplishments. And has his sight set on dominating the 50cc and 65cc classes until next summer before making a leap into AMA (American Motorcyclist Association) Amateur National competition.
Despite competing at motocross for not even three years, Jesse this year garnered overall 50cc (age 7-8) and 50cc Open-class titles in two Northwest motocross series, the CMC (California Motorsports Club)-sanctioned Pac West and CMC Northwest Summer Series.
The 10-round Pac West series, which concluded in late July, has long been regarded as the premier Northwest motocross series and features events in Oregon (Albany) and in Washington (Bellingham, Washougal, Spokane and Richland). In that series last summer, the West family, consisting of Jesse’s father, Mike, and mother, Tana, traveled throughout the Northwest armed with Jesse’s potent 50cc two-stroke Cobra minicycle.
Jesse fared well enough at each round of Pac West competition (including two first-place finishes and a string of top-three performances) to earn the young rider his first two major Northwest motocross titles.
It was of little surprise to Mike and Tana West that Jesse would progress as he has as a motorcycle racer. After all, racing runs in the West family, and now has for several generations since Jesse’s 2005 debut, dating back to the late 1950s, when Mike West’s father, LeRoy, raced professionally.
