Luke and Jake Roderick are identical nine-year-old twins.
It wasn't hard to tell them apart once the BMX races ended Sunday.
Despite the 22 C heat of the afternoon, Luke was a wearing a wool full-face ninja balaclava.
It just was his way of making a fashion statement while he waited for his mom to finish up her work-party duties grooming the course at the Supertrak BMX Club track at Carrie Jane Gray Park.
Luke joined the club for one race last year after his one-minute-older brother Jake got started on his BMX career last August. Both boys have ridden BMX bikes since they were five-year-olds at the nearby Rotary Skate Park. While some of the same skills of riding and jumping on concrete apply to BMX racing in the dirt, it takes time to adjust, and Luke admits he has some catching up to do before he's as good at racing as Jake, who leads Supertrak's nine-year-old novice class.
For Jake, the differences are obvious.
"You have to go fast and it's not really freestyle, there's actually rules and stuff, but it's really fun," said Jake. "It hurts a bit less when you wipe out on dirt, but not that much."
The club is preparing to host a BMX Canada national series event - the Northern Lights Nationals, Aug. 15-17. At least 200 racers from B.C., Alberta and some of the western United States are expected to make the trip and for all the Supertrak racers, it's a big deal.
"We're going to be racing different people and it's going to be awesome," said Jake. "No matter if you win or lose, you still have fun."
Luke likes racing other riders but he has another reason to be in top form for the national race.
"It will probably be real fun, because I get to beat Americans," he said.
The nine-year-old novice group is one of the biggest in the club, with anywhere from seven to nine riders and both Roderick boys love racing each other. Jake usually has the upper hand but sometimes Luke gets to the finish first.
"They were fighting when we went to Victoria and I told him, 'if you're mad at him, just beat him,' and he beat him," said Laurie Fowlie, the boys' mother.
Not surprisingly, that was the high point of Luke's BMX career so far.
"In Victoria it's mostly cement, and cement is easy to ride on, you get lots of speed and that helped me," said Luke. "He's faster than me right now. It kinda sucks that I didn't start at the same time."
Fowlie finds it easier to watch the races than she does seeing her boys try to perform scary tricks on the bike/skateboard park with their dad, James Roderick. But BMX can be painful too. Sometimes the kids slip off the pedals and find the bar between their legs instead of the saddle, or they get dumped into the dirt and get their fingers bent backwards or leave skin from their behind.
Upwards of 10 Prince George BMX families travel together to races and for Fowlie, the club feels like one big family.
"It's really an upbeat group here," she said. "The track is run really well and everybody gets involved."
Veteran rider Brady Anderson, the No. 3 finisher in the national series last year, is basically in a class of his own now that Nathan Findlay and Enzo Bracklow have retired from racing. Anderson, who competes in the 16-year-old expert class, is still just as hungry to earn the right to put the No. 1 plate on his bike next season and expects some stiff competition on his home track in August. Alex Tougas of Maple Ridge and Bobby Worth of Abbotsford are the two biggest obstacles standing in his way.
"I've been racing them ever since I started racing [10 years ago], they're both pretty fast," said Anderson, who was second overall in the national event in May in Chilliwack. "Alex is world No. 1, he's beating some pros.
"It's going to be cool racing a national at home, I know the track and I know how to ride it."
The Supertrak club postponed plans to completely revamp the track, which was last reconstructed two years ago. A major rebuild is needed to carve out higher hills and match up the finish line pavement with the dirt track, which was widened during the most recent redesign.
"There's too much going on this year to throw a new build in there too," said track operator Angela Patterson. "We built a couple of new obstacles and this last weekend rebuilt two of the three corners."
Before the national race, the start gate will have to be repaved. The asphalt on either side of the downward ramp is crumbling and riders on either outside lane are catching their tires in the tracks. That $11,000 project will be done sometime in June. The metal gate itself will also be reconditioned before the August event.
Prince George last hosted a national race event in 2010. Other B.C. stops on the national series include Kelowna, June 13-15; Cumberland July 18-20; and the grand nationals in Chilliwack, Oct. 10-12.
Supertrak races will be held Wednesday evenings (7 p.m.) and Sunday afternoons (11 a.m.) until the end of the school year. Then the club switches to Tuesday and Thursday evening club races. Practices are on Mondays from 6-8 p.m. throughout the season.
