Warren Constantine won his first ever major championship this year, winning big at the Western Canadian Amateur Motorsports Championships.
Warren took first overall in the 85cc for 12-16 year olds class and second overall in the super mini class.
“This is super exciting for Warren this year,” said Carrie Constantine, Warren’s mom.
The Fort St. James motocross racer is only 14 years old, but already he has taken home a large collection of trophies from his series racing career in motocross, but none were at major events like Raymond.
The championships, held in Raymond, Alberta, were tough racing, with the track being quite rough at times, and conditions being very challenging – both windy and hot.
With winds blowing 60-70 km/hr on Wednesday while practicing, some riders were blown off the track or into each other as they flew through the air over jumps.
According to Warren’s mom Carrie, one of Warren’s friends and his major competition was blown past the landing of a large double jump, and when he landed flat, the rider compressed two discs in his back, putting him out of competition for up to eight weeks.
Four laps later, Carrie said a similar thing happened to Warren, and it was a bit scary.
But after giving it some time, Warren felt sore, but okay to continue.
The weather was better on Thursday for competition, and Warren had great races, doing so well in the first two categories, he decided not to push his luck and bowed out of the third category he was originally going to enter.
Carrie’s account of his second day of racing is an exciting play-by-play of how the races unfolded:
“Day two of racing Warren didn’t get a great start in his 85 class but he moved up right away and rode a great race finishing 1st again.
His supermini class he got the holeshot out of 39 bikes and held the lead over the Canadian Champion for about half a lap. Warren found a bad rut and went down, he managed to get restarted and right back in the mix only falling to about sixth place. He worked his way through the pack fairly quickly and fought around second place Landon Nelson of Prince George. Landon and Warren race against each other tire to tire all the time! It’s not surprising they found each other again at the Western Canadian Amateur Nationals. Warren managed to pass Landon and finished the race in second place again. After day two my nerves where shot, we knew Warren only had to race two clean motos. He was sitting in first place overall in the 85 12-16 class and second overall in the supermini class. Saturday morning first thing the kids had to race supermini, Warren went out and raced his perfect race. He finished second without any trouble and was so happy with that standing in that class. We had to wait a little while for his 85 class, when the gates dropped Warren got the holeshot and raced a perfect race and finally, finally won his Championship. You couldn’t wipe the smile off his face, not to mention his father and myself.”
The Constantine family and Sara King’s family were both at Rayomond, which is an expensive event to get to and enter. King is another well-established local racer, look for a story on her time at Raymond in the near future.
Local sponsorship helped without the financial burden, with the District of Fort St. James and Fort Machine Works helping with travel costs for the two competitors, but neither competitor will be heading to Walton, Ontario for the Canadian Grand Nationals, because according to Warren, it’s “too far, too expensive.”
Warren’s next races will instead be a little closer to home, with some more series racing in north-central B.C. and somer races in the Peace region as well, which he hasn’t done before, and which he said will give him an opportunity for some different competition.
He will also head to Kamloops again in September for the BCMA Pro-Am Provincials.
