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No Fear: East Brady 10-Year-Old Jaxx Dailey Rides to Win on Youth Motocross Circuit

EAST BRADY, Pa. (EYT/D9) — Jaxx Dailey may have a bright future as a negotiator.

For the better part of a year, he worked on his parents, Jake and Tracy Dailey, to buy him a dirt bike after he saw Motocross races on television.

The stock reply was, “Maybe.”

But Jaxx kept at it, eventually turning that “maybe” into a “yes.”

Now 10, Jaxx rides in the AWRCS circuit, a regional racing series, on his Yamaha YZ65. He shows no fear and has done quite well in his budding racing career.

He was third in points last season with four Top-10 finishes in the Pee Wee Bike division before a mid-summer accident that resulted in a broken leg cost him the rest of his season.

“I looked down at this root and hit it, went sideways and my tire went off the track and I wrecked into a tree,” Jaxx said. “I was like, ‘Oh, boy. I’m done for.’”

Accidents are part of the territory in racing at any level and Jaxx has had his fair share of misfortune since he began riding.

“I’ve broken both legs,” Jaxx said. “My thumb. My collar bone. My elbow. Three weeks after I get my cast off, I’m right back on my bike.”

For Jake and Tracy, there can be moments of intense fear, especially with the nature of the courses that Jaxx races on.

They wind through the woods, some dense, some open, some flat and some with hills and turns. There are blind spots where the parents cannot see what is going on with their children racers.

“It’s definitely a fear,” said Tracy, who is the girls soccer coach at Karns City High School. “I’ve talked to other dirt bike moms and they said it doesn’t get any easier, and they’re correct. It really doesn’t, especially seeing as he gets older, he’s going faster. He’s jumping farther.”

Jaxx wants to be a professional one day and he’s had plenty of role models.

Because the Daileys live in East Brady, there’s a lack of viable tracks for Jaxx to use. Luckily, he can ride at Switchback Raceway in Butler. He also rides at the home of Chase Colville, a professional rider from West Sunbury, as well as with former local professional Tyler Martin.

What keeps Jaxx coming back?

“I like winning,” he said. “If you finish in the top 5 you get on the podium and if you get the fastest lap, you get $20.”

The Daileys are a sports family.

Jake played football, basketball and ran track in high school and moved on to play football at Grove City College. He’s currently an assistant football coach at Karns City.

Tracy played soccer and track in high school and soccer at Slippery Rock University.

The couple’s eldest daughter, Emma, is a junior at Karns City and plays soccer, basketball and is on the track and field team at Karns City as well as with the Hotspurs North Soccer Club. Hanna, an eighth-grader, plays basketball and soccer. And Jaxx also plays lacrosse for Butler and basketball for Karns City.

The family is used to traveling for sporting events. But Jaxx’s racing pursuits are much different than their typical athletic fare.

“I think one the biggest things that was different is … you develop different friendships,” Jake said. “The racing community is different.”

The tracks can run anywhere from a mile to two miles and often wind through wooded areas. Families often send members out into the woods at various points throughout the course and report to each other when their own racer passes.

Sometimes the Daileys don’t have enough bodies to cover the entire course, so other families lend a hand.

“It’s nice to know that you have other people watching out for your little ones when they are doing something they like to do,” Jake said. “The family atmosphere is a big thing. A lot of the families who have boys racing as well, we’re friends with. The kids make friends and so do the adults.”

For Jake and Tracy, it is difficult sometimes because racing is so foreign to them.

Neither one had ever ridden.

“We had good friends who were able to get us involved and help out from the get-go with the racing, and they’re still very good friends today,” Jake said. “We still go camping together.”

Jaxx will race one more season in the Pee Wee Division, but he will also be eligible to race in the Youth Division.

“He’s getting to the age where he’s in between,” Tracy said. “So, we’ll get to race a little bit more on Sunday.

Jaxx’s season begins April 2 and 3 at Coal Hollow in Wellsville, Ohio.

He’s ready.

So is the Dailey family.

“I think a lot of what Jaxx is going to remember hanging out with his friends and doing these hill climbs on their pedal bikes and running all over the course,” Tracy said. “I mean, he’ll love his dirt bike and love to race, but he’ll love those other memories he’ll make, too.”