Big-time youth and amateur motocross racing can be very time-consuming. It means a lot of travel, a lot of missed days at work for parents, and usually a lot of absences for school-aged kids. That’s a price some families are willing to pay as they navigate their way through the ranks, trying to hit all the big races while they test, train, and practice. Some families even move full-time to a motocross training facility where they can work, ride, and live around all the tools and tracks they feel like they need to succeed in racing. But few training facilities—let alone any actual racetracks—have classrooms for kids to continue their education. And that, as we’ve said before, has long been our sport’s dirty little secret: the lack of real education for many of its participants.

Andrea Leib could see the problem. She and her husband, Don, had found themselves at a crossroads after their son Michael won his class at the ’02 Mini Olympics in Florida. 

“We were trying to make it back across the country from Florida to California in time to get the kids back in school, and Don realized that we were probably going to have to start homeschooling Michael,” Andrea says. “I said, ‘Over my dead body.’ But then I started to realize that this may work for Michael, so I started to play around with trying to fill that need by depending on the school system and using their homeschool program, and it failed miserably.”

Andrea had experience in tutoring through her background as an educator; she had a degree and a teaching credential for K–12/multiple subject, followed by a master’s degree from the University of Redlands. She began to realize that the schooling conundrum was common in moto, and it wasn’t just the kids who raced—her daughter Ali was only 13 at the time.

“I started tutoring for other families with young riders, like the Baggetts and the Villopotos, and soon people were hiring me to tutor their kids at the track,” she says. “Pretty soon Blake Baggett was coming to our house in the middle of the week, and he and Michael and Ali had practically a little classroom together, then have lunch and recess together outside—just a sense of a little community for them. That’s when I realized that homeschooling wasn’t working and we needed to have a specific program for our community of racing families.”

Leib had tried a charter school in Southern California, but that didn’t suffice either. It was just packets of homework to be turned in at the end of the month, with no true grading—just pass or fail—and no real tools for her as a parent to pitch in.

“I’m a teacher, and I’m thinking, What if my kids aren’t learning and I want to be able to go back and remediate any kind of math lesson?” she recalls. “But there wasn’t anything. I didn’t have access to any kind of teacher’s guide or support. They were just being tested, like the annual standardized test every spring, to see if they passed or not, and that was totally unacceptable for us.”

Blake’s mom, LeeAnnn Baggett, agreed, and she pushed Andrea to consider opening some kind of remote learning program. Darrin and Kris Currier, Landon’s parents, agreed that it was a smart (and long-overdue) idea. She soon launched On Track Custom Learning Solutions for her tutoring.

Cairo Calling

Cairo, Georgia, is home to several significant riding facilities, including Millsaps Training Facility and Georgia Practice Facility. The concentration of motocross families living there must be greater than any other place in the country right now, with many riders and families staying there year-round. Leib decided to find a local instructor there who could check on the kids living in motor homes—kids like Joey Savatgy and Nico Izzi. Andrea went to visit both Colleen Millsaps (MTF) and Terry Woods (GPF), and they were totally supportive, though they needed someone to help them by being the primary learning coach, helping parents (whom On Track refers to as home coaches). Through the local librarian, Leib found Wanda Ezell at a nearby tutoring center. Wanda has been working with the kids in Cairo ever since—GPF even has a dedicated classroom on the property.

GPF has also partnered with On Track to host a scholarship race each of the past five years. Last year’s race attracted 600 riders, and the GPF staff help with the fundraising portion of the race, calling around the industry for support. 

“The money that’s raised goes into our nonprofit, and then we distribute it based on earnings through a link, which is very easy to set up,” Andrea says. “It’s a 529 Educational Savings Plan, and we just transfer the money over. This way we know it’s going specifically towards education and not motorcycle tires! And if the rider doesn’t end up using his money, it can be used by a sibling or a parent who might want to return to school.”

As the digital world and social media have evolved, so has the way On Track engages students and conducts lessons. Virtual classrooms have become a valuable tool for educators like Leib and her fellow coaches.

“In the very beginning it was worksheets and mailing in or faxing over assignments—it was all very scripted,” she explains. “Now it’s extremely engaging. We use Google Meet, which is their version of Zoom, and we use Google Classroom and Google Calendar. We have live sessions in every subject, every day, so our elementary, middle, and high-school teams will get together a schedule so students know what lessons are being taught every day. And because we have students spread across all 50 states, as well as the fact that families are often traveling to races, if they miss that live session, they can watch the recorded session. There are also live office hours for the students to get added instruction, help or whatever they need.”

Another part of the On Track equation are the social events they organize at big races—things that homeschooled kids back in the day might have missed, like prom, homecoming, even a graduation ceremony. 

“That’s what sets On Track apart—it’s a community,” Leib says. “The culture here is not just to meet an educational need; it’s meeting that social interaction need as well. Like the prom we had at Loretta Lynn’s mansion last year, with DJ Judd playing music, the kids all dressed up, and just how much fun everyone had. The kids are still talking about that! We do a graduation dinner at Loretta’s, and at Mini O’s we do our Disco in the Dirt, which is like the homecoming dance. Things like that are important to kids.”

Legacy

When Jeff Emig was coming up through the ranks in the 1980s, the idea of homeschooling was not nearly as pervasive as it is today. Same goes for Ricky Carmichael in the ’90s. Both signed contracts to turn pro before they were finished with 12th grade, and as a result, neither formally completed their studies. They went on to become AMA Motorcycle Hall of Famers—just not high school graduates. Both are now graduates thanks to On Track School, Emig in 2019 and RC this year.

“I am so proud and honored—it’s a win-win-win,” Leib says of her best-known alumni. “They win because they’re accomplishing their goal. They win because they are setting a wonderful example, checking something off that may have been missing from each of their lives. And it’s a win for the program because it’s our goal to help everyone, no matter how fast or well-known you are.”

“Graduating was a huge personal accomplishment for me because high school was the one thing I left unfinished,” says Carmichael, who dropped out of Leon High School in Tallahassee nine weeks into the 11th grade in the fall of ’95. “After I saw Jeff [Emig] go back and get his diploma, I made up my mind that I was going to do it too. Andrea and her team really helped me and made it enjoyable, and we got to have a special ceremony at Daytona. And what was really cool was the fact that my kids never got to see me race professionally, but they got to see me graduate.”

“Seeing the look on Ricky’s face when his name was called at Daytona, that was priceless,” Leib says. “And his kids and his parents were there, it was just amazing. When I told him to meet the rest of the Class of ’23, he saw Haiden [Deegan] and Dax [Bennick] and Casey [Cochran] and said, ‘I can’t believe I’m in their graduating class—I’m already saying some of their names on TV!’” Indeed, Haiden Deegan had scored his first podium in Monster Energy Supercross the previous evening. 

“Same goes for Jeff when he graduated,” Leib continues. “It was a personal accomplishment that meant a lot to him. It bothered him that he had that unfinished diploma, and you could see how proud he was standing up on that stage with those 17- and 18-year-olds. It didn’t matter what he or Ricky did in their racing careers—this was a personal goal.”

Of course, not every graduate goes on to a professional career, nor does everyone want to (though Trey Canard, Blake Wharton, Weston Peick, Vince Friese, Jo Shimoda, and many more have). Instead, On Track kids have become police officers, doctors, nurses, firefighters, teachers, and more.

Along those lines, On Track School developed an apprentice program called Career Exploration & Apprenticeship 101 for kids who might be interested in motorcycle industry jobs. During long races like Loretta Lynn’s, the Mini O’s, or Spring A Ding Ding, students can spend the week shadowing current industry members and ultimately helping out under one of the team tents as a mechanic, on the TV crew, taking photographs, announcing, and more. 

“It’s a great program for siblings that come to the races, or even riders who know that no matter how their own racing careers turn out, they would really like to work in the sport,” Leib says. “It’s hard for some to leave moto completely behind because they are at the end of their careers, like Sean Hackley (Class of ’07) with his riding schools, or even my son Michael (’07) with Canvas MX.” (Incidentally, the photograph on pages 12–13 in this magazine was shot by Loretta Lynn’s ’21 apprentice Rowan Ferrick.) 

As youth sports have become more and more specialized, families are often forced to make both commitments and sacrifices for their kids—especially when it comes to sports that don’t have scholastic ties, like moto, karting, BMX, equestrian, and similar individual pursuits. Annual tuition for On Track School ranges from $5,200 to $7,500. They also offer tailored education packages, and they are working on building out the scholarship program to help give even more kids a chance to pursue their racing dreams while also getting a real education, with real teachers and classmates who know and have lived the motocross life. 

To learn more, visit ontrackschool.com.