Sitting on his purple and white BMX bike just before the first race of the day Sunday, Trae Prest was asked about his grandpa, who died in February, and he fought back tears as his thoughts turned to the man who was the heart and soul of the Prest family racing team.
His grandfather, Bert Prest, was a local stock car legend, a dominant driver for decades around the high-bank oval track of the old PGARA Speedway, where the Real Canadian Superstore parking lot now sits.
Now 11, Trae and his younger brother Nate have been racing their bikes at the Supertrak BMX Club track at Carrie Jane Gray Park for six years and this is the first season they haven't had their grandpa around to cheer them on.
Losing him has hit the Prest boys hard.
Bert was proud of his two grandsons and granddaughter Teariny, the boys' cousin, who also races. He loved watching them put the pedal down at their home track and, with his wife Judy, followed them on road trips to national and provincial series races in the Okanagan, the Lower Mainland and on Vancouver Island.
"Dad would take them for lunch before the race in his ('54 Ford) hot rod and then take them to the race track," said Mike Prest. "They travelled with us to all the nationals."
Known as Bert "the Barber," Prest's dominance of the Prince George Auto Racing Association's super stock class as points champion from 1973-83 had a trickle-down effect of his family. His son Bert (Smoky) raced the WESCAR sportsman touring series for 15 years and his brothers and father were all part of his pit crew. Smoky hasn't raced for a few years and Trae and Nate were both born a bit late to remember seeing their uncle taking checkered-flag victory laps but they know their stock car ties put racing in their blood.
Their grandpa's achievements were celebrated last month during the WESCAR race at PGARA Speedway when the club paid tribute to Bert with a black-flag lap and the announcement that his car No. 78 would be retired. Now that he's gone at age 74, after a two-month battle with pancreatic cancer, the kids are doing what they can to keep the Prest name prominent in the club points standings. For the last two years running, 11-year-old Trae has held on to the Number 1 plate as the club's overall points champion and in both of those years his nine-year-old brother Nate has been No. 2.
This past weekend the club hosted its first provincial race on its revamped track and 68 riders, including nine from out of town, were entered. In Sunday's provincial qualifier, Nate won both his motos and finished first overall in the 9 expert class, while Trae, sporting his No. 11 district plate, was a third-place finisher racing up an age class in 12 intermediate.
"We're just trying hard and having fun," said Trae. "They made the jumps bigger and a bit more choppy and it's better."
Trae and Nate's parents, Mike and Priscilla, are both hinting about joining the boys on the track racing in the adult cruiser class. Nate says they have lot to learn.
"I've had my dad on a bike for practices and he's not that fast," said Nate.
Two weekends ago at a national race in Abbotsford where some classes had 30 riders, Nate and Trae both made it to the main event on Friday and Nate was also a semifinalist on Sunday. Nate spent a weekend on the new local track a few weeks ago with national team coach Ken Cools, who offered a few tips that have made him faster.
"He taught me how to clip in (with cleats) and pedal the whole track with clips," said Nate, who also won all his races Friday and Saturday. "The track is harder than it used to be and there's a lot of places I can manual (ride on one wheel). I can almost manual the last table. I just learned that this year. My coach taught me to push people high into the corners so they lose their speed."
Nate likes to win but it doesn't seem to bother him if he doesn't.
"The nice thing about Nate is he doesn't care if he wins or loses, he's here to have fun," said Mike Prest. "He's friends with everybody here and he helps the little kids. But he's doing really good, he's killing it now."
Mike says all the Supertrak riders are benefitting from the $147,000 improvement project at their home track. A new start gate is still a few weeks away from installation but the dirt features are in place, featuring bigger jumps and higher, wider corners, which have made the track more difficult to ride.
"The track is amazing," said Mike. "When we were going out of town the jumps were too big and it was making them nervous, but now that we have a national-sized track the kids are killing it everywhere."
Mike, Bert's trucking partner at Screaming Eagle Contracting, also used to race stock cars. He won PGARA's rookie of the year award in his first of three years racing the hobby stock class in the early 2000s but BMX is his focus now. He's started a bike racing team - Lowlife BMX - and has adopted the same purple and white colour scheme Bert and Smoky had when they were racing.
"We ride with fancy jerseys all year and the bikes are always done up and Dad always instilled in us, if you want to be treated like a professional, then look like a professional, and he always said that families that race together, stay together."
The team includes Nate, Trae, their 14-year-old cousin Teariny, cruiser racers Angela Patterson and Derek Orr and his 10-year-old son Owen. Five-year-old Audrey Prest (Smoky's granddaughter) wants to start BMX racing next year.
"Next year we're going big into the team and we'll have tents and everything, just like a stock car team," said Mike.
