Accelerating from 0 to 460

From a first glance, he’s your typical outspoken eleven-year-old with a pension for getting into mischief. His bright smile is contagious and his laugh can be heard from all around the paddock as he runs around with his posse of ten and eleven-year-old boys. As race time rolls around, something about him changes, a bit of a transformation, an intensity not common in your average eleven, twelve, or even thirteen-year-old. He walks inside his trailer, kisses his baby sister on the cheek and then heads over to his bike. His father helps him buckle his AGV Rossi replica helmet, kisses him on the top of his head, then pushes him off on his Rossi replica NSR 50, fully emblazoned with a bright yellow 46. For a moment I think I’m in the small seaside town of Tavullia, Italy in the early nineties witnessing first hand, the beginnings of a star of a magnitude that at that point was incomprehensible. The similarities don’t end on the looks alone.

I watch as this pint sized Rossi replica takes to the track, starting from the back of a fifteen-rider grid and working his way up to third by the end of the first lap. With two laps to go he makes an impossible pass for the lead and makes it work, only to be re-passed again on the long straight of the Buttonwillow Kart track. It’s clear his bike is down on power, losing two to three bike lengths to his competitor every time they hit the straight. The lack of power doesn’t stop him. With one lap remaining he makes a daring and hard pass for the lead, parents hold their breath as the two young aces lean on each other like seasoned veterans, surely he’s going to tuck the front and take out his competitor. Miraculously, he makes it stick. Even more miraculous, these incredible passes are a regular part of his routine. Losing out on the straight for the final time, he brakes so hard into the corner at the end of the straight that he makes up a two-bike length deficit and re-passes his rival.
It is clear to those of us who have watched him move up through the ranks that there is something special about this young rider. His dad keeping him on sub par machinery and putting him up against fast kids on superior bikes has taught him how to make the impossible possible, very reminiscent of a certain Valentino Rossi. Where there is a will there is a way. Young Anthony Alonso has more than enough will and no matter the situation, he always finds a way. Anthony went on to take another win in his 9 month long campaign for his third title. It’s not the first time I’ve heard the whispers, everyone at the club openly admits it, even the fathers of his biggest rivals admit that this kid truly is a mini Rossi and we are truly witnessing the beginnings of something great.

His name is Anthony Alonso, and although he is an eleven-year-old riding on underpowered machinery, he does lap times that are over a second faster than impossible, holding the lap record for his machinery at every track he has raced. In 2007 he won his first Championship in the 4.2 Pocketbike class in the Stockton Mini Road Racing Championship in Northern California. The following year he became the 2008 California NSR Cup Champion. In his final year on the mini tracks, Anthony currently leads the SMRRC Overall Championship, he sits in the top 5 of the SCminiGP Overall Championship, and leads the way in the SMRRC Mini GP, Mini GP Youth, and NSR Cup Championship. Most importantly, he truly loves what he does.
Next year Anthony will make the big step up to the big tracks on a Honda RS125. As dedicated as his family is to their son’s racing, dedication alone will not get them through the trying times and astronomical costs of racing in the ultra competitive 125 class. To campaign a single year of racing, the annual costs can be upwards of 25,000$. Because of this, sponsorship is crucial and it would be a shame to see such an innately talented individual be forced to abandon their dreams. So while Anthony continues to fight his battles on the track, off the track his family wages a war against the financial struggles that plague every racing family without the fortune of bottomless pockets.
To find out more about Anthony, please visit www.alonso.tv