Round four of MiniSBK ran at Shannonville on a Sunday at the end of July, and it produced the two results that sit at opposite ends of a race weekend.
Crosby won the first race. Then the bike broke in the second and he did not finish.
I have written before about crashes, because crashes are the thing everyone outside the sport asks about. Nobody asks about mechanical failure, and mechanical failure is both more common and, for a kid, considerably harder to take. A crash has a cause you can point at. You went in too hot, you ran out of road, you made a decision and it was wrong. There is something to work on, and working on it is a form of control.
A bike that stops is not like that. He did nothing. The result was taken away by a component, and the only available response is to stand in the paddock and watch a race he was entitled to be in.
He took it better than I would have. That is not me being generous about my own kid — I am reasonably confident I would have been worse at eight, and I am not certain I would be good at it now.
Abel had the inverse weekend. His first race was unremarkable and his second was the best I have seen from him, and he came home fourth. Fourth is an awkward result to celebrate and I want to make the case for it anyway. Fourth means you were in the fight and did not get the trophy. It is the position that most reliably indicates a rider is racing at the limit of what they currently have, because third would have required something they do not have yet and fifth would have meant they left something in reserve.
The pattern I keep noticing across this season is that the three of them almost never have a good day at the same time. One wins, one breaks, one quietly improves. It makes the drive home complicated, because the correct emotional response is different in each of the three seats behind you.
You end up doing a lot of talking on the 401.