The 2026 season started at the end of April at Brechin, and it started the way it always does here — with a school day, a practice day, and then a race before anyone feels ready.
Friday was the day that mattered, and it had nothing to do with lap times. Friday was when Cohen and Abel got on the Ohvales they would be riding all year.
Cohen went first. He picked it up quickly, which is not the same as picking it up easily — it means he did the boring parts properly and got signed off. Abel had to wait, and watching your younger brother get moved up ahead of you while you are still on the KLX is about as hard a thing as you can ask of a kid at a racetrack. He was not happy about it. He also did not make it anyone else's problem. He waited until he was deemed ready, and then he rode.
I have thought about that Friday more than I expected to. The upgrade is the thing that gets photographed, but the part worth keeping is the hour before it, when nothing was going his way and he stayed put anyway.
Saturday was the first race of the season, and it rained hard. Between the weather and the fact that both of them had a single day of experience on the bigger bikes, the call was made to put them back on the KLX for the race. That decision was correct and it was still a blow, particularly for Abel, who had spent all of Friday earning a bike he was now not going to race.
It was a two-hour team endurance race. Both of them went down at some point and both got back up and kept going, which on that day put them in good company — a lot of people crashed. They finished fourth, on a bike substantially smaller than most of what they were racing against.
Fourth on the wrong bike in the rain is a better result than it looks on paper, and it is a much better result than it felt like at the time. What I remember is not the position. It is that the second half of that race was the first time all day Abel looked like he was enjoying himself.