The provincial motocross races were held in Yorkton recently and one of the the top finishes belonged to Columbia School student, Haylen Langelier.
He must have felt like a boy playing against the men.
Only thing is that Langelier is a boy. Most of his competition that day were quite a bit older than he is.He competed in the 85cc-12 to 16 years-of-age category and went 4-1 for 1st overall. Rick Bradshaw of Scrader's Motors said Langelier victory was his first class win and he's only 12 years old.
Langelier, who is currently in Gr. 8 has more sponsors than most kids his age and he's quite articulate. He said he wasn't scared of racing guys who were three, four and five years older than he is.
He's been racing dirt bikes since he was only four years old and judging by his pictures, the look on his face says he's right at home sitting on his Yamaha 85.
"It's a challenge," he said during a brief interview with the paper in his school's library. Langelier says he loves motocross and wasn't too tired to talk about it either, after having just spent 20 minutes running laps in the school yard with the Columbia Cougars cross country team.
He raced four times at the Millstone Raceway in mid-September. He had one first-place finish, two fourths, and a fifth.
"There were some pretty fast people," he acknowledged. "The track was kind of rough."
He modestly suggested that he wasn't even aware of his finish until notified of his accomplishment by a fellow competitor.
"I didn't even know I was in first (place) until the guy in second told me. I was really happy."
He added that he went the full day and "didn't crash!"
Langelier said his season likely would not have been possible without the support of a handful of helpers, including sponsorships received from Yorkton Toyota, Schrader's, Preeceville Midtown Service, McDonald's, Zenkalier Racing (team name), his mother and grandma for coming and helping him at the race, and last but not least, "thank Wade Zenkewich for fixing my bike."
