This Mooresville BMX champion is a budding star. He’s only 5 years old.
Chase Reynolds is one of just a handful of 5-year-old expert BMX riders in the country.
Shortly after he learned to walk, Reynolds started racing on a Strider balance bike at 16 months, according to his mother, Alison, a former race car driver.
A month later, the Mooresville boy entered his firstrace in Charlotte.
“He finished dead last, by a lot,” Alison Reynolds said. “He was just walking with the bike while the other kids were riding.”
That summer, Alison said her family went to visit family in Canada for a month where they discovered a 100,000-square-foot bike park where Chase could practice.
After some training at the park, Chase participated in his first official BMX race during a Canadian national competition where he finished third out of three riders.
But when Chase returned the next year, he won, Alison said.
When the Reynolds family arrived back in North Carolina, Chase started practicing at least twice a week at Hornets Nest Park, Alison said, adding that her son was too young to understand the concept of winning and losing races.
“He loved his bike,” she said. “He loved playing with his friends and riding, so we just kept at it.”
Chase’s parents bought him his first race bike just before his third birthday. By that time, he already had years of training and secured a sponsor in Woom Bikes, a bike company based in Austria.
Racing is the family business
Like her son, Alison started racing at a young age, but her vehicle of choice was a go-kart.
Shortly after professional driver Danica Patrick arrived on the circuit, Alison, who was only 14 at the time, was chosen to participate in Ford Motor Company’s Women In Racing program designed to get women involved in stock car racing.
“They had a whole combine with 100 women, and they narrowed it down to four, and I was one of those four,” Alison said. “I raced with Ford from the time I was 14 until about 19.”
Alison moved to Mooresville to continue racing for Ford where she met her husband, Chris, who works in NASCAR. Unfortunately, the move — shortly before the economic downtown in 2008 — led to the end of her racing career.
“Ford ended up having to pull their sponsorship money, and I fell into a weird situation as a Canadian because there weren’t a lot of American companies that wanted to sponsor me. And Canadian companies weren’t really advertising in the U.S.,” she said. “So my career kind of fizzled out there.”
Chase the champion
In BMX racing, there are three divisions, Alison explained: novice, intermediate and expert. Riders start in the novice class, and once they get 10 wins, they move up a level.
Chase won his first race when he was 3. A year later, he moved up to intermediate, where he raced against kids twice his age. In July, after winning three races in a national competition, Chase advanced to the expert level.
There are only nine 5-year-old expert riders in the country.
Chase has now racked up numerous wins during his BMX racing career, including five at the national level.
Though he is “extremely competitive,” his mother said, Chase never lets the opposition phase him.
“He’s always handled the competition well,” Alison said. “We started taking him to nationals when he was three, so the big races just seem normal to him. When it comes down to him being on the track, he’s focused.”
Making mud pies and riding bikes
Unlike many athletes, Chase doesn’t have a set training routine he completes before every race, but he gets time to work on strength, stamina and balance during practices.
“During the day, he’s more focused on playing with his friends, and we want him to have fun,” Alison said. “They usually have monster trucks, Hot Wheels and things like that while we’re waiting for the race to start.”
Since traveling for national races since he was a toddler, Chase has made friends all over the country, Alison said, adding that he has also bonded with his local BMX team, In The Zone, with riders ranging from 3 to 55 years old.
During national races, Alison said the gap between heats leaves plenty of time for Chase to take a break from the competition and be a kid.
“There are two to three hours in between each round, so that’s just purely social time for him,” she said. “He’s got all his toys, and he enjoys riding scooters and making mud pies with his friends.”
This story was originally published November 30, 2022 at 12:31 PM.
