When Someone Else Takes Your Child Racing: The Protocols, Failures, and Non-Negotiables Every Race Parent Needs to Know

In youth racing — whether BMX or moto — families sacrifice weekends, PTO, money, and miles for their kids. But one reality doesn’t get talked about enough: sometimes your racer ends up traveling or competing with someone who isn’t you.

Maybe you can’t get off work.Maybe the budget won’t stretch to send the whole family. Maybe your racer is traveling with a team.

Whatever the reason, when you hand your child over to another adult, you’re handing over:

• their safety

• their medical decisions

• their emotional wellbeing

• their ability to be located in an emergency

And far too many parents do this without documentation, without protocol, and without truly understanding what’s at risk.

Last week at USABMX Grands, we all saw exactly how wrong it can go.

The Grands Incident: A Preventable Failure That Should Wake Up Every Parent

During warmups at Grand Nationals, a 16-year-old rider was sprinting in the parking lot without protective gear. He caught a pedal and slammed into the pavement. The injuries were severe: broken bones, facial trauma, and internal damage requiring urgent surgical intervention.

But the real crisis began after he hit the ground.

He was not with a parent. He was not with a legally authorized guardian.He was with a team — and that team abandoned their responsibility.

The adult who stepped in wasn’t his coach or manager. It was my child’s dad’s fiancée — our extended-family mom — who didn’t know this boy personally but recognized a child in distress and did what too many adults refused to do: she took action.

She pulled him off the asphalt. She found his team manager and told him to come take responsibility. He refused, saying he was “busy.”

When medics recommended immediate ER transport, he still refused to assist.

So our extended-family mom rode with the injured boy to the hospital. She sat through hours of fear and uncertainty, advocating for him as he cried for his parents and begged for someone he knew.

And still — no one from his team showed up.

The hospital later determined he needed a trauma center. He was transferred by ambulance, alone, and underwent surgery with no parent or guardian present.

He had:

• no temporary guardianship paperwork

• no medical release

• no insurance card

• no identification

• no adult legally authorized to speak for him

Because he uses two last names, his parents — states away — couldn’t even locate him in the hospital system.

This wasn’t just a clerical oversight.It was a systemic failure, made possible by a culture that treats youth racing travel like a casual carpool instead of a legal and medical responsibility.

The Next Day: When Accountability Turned Into Aggression

After abandoning his injured rider, the team manager returned the next morning — not to check on the boy, not to apologize, not to thank the woman who had stayed with him.

He showed up to posture.

When our extended-family mom didn’t engage, he directed his anger toward me, asking if I wanted to fight. Let’s just say there’s nothing more on-brand than a grown man with a bruised ego and a noticeable height disadvantage trying to intimidate women.

I laughed and said, “Oh, I’d kick your ass.”

That’s when he exploded — loud enough for other parents and children to hear — with “F*** YOU, I’LL KICK YOUR ASS!”

Napoleon syndrome may be cliché, but sometimes clichés exist for a reason.

What mattered most, though, was this: the person who abandoned a hurt child was also the loudest in defending his own ego.

And too often, that combination is exactly who parents are trusting to supervise their kids.

Why Better Protocols Are Non-Negotiable

The AMA — the governing body for moto racing — now requires a notarized release from both parents if a minor is registered by anyone other than their parent. They implemented this because tracks were getting caught in legal battles when non-custodial parents claimed they never allowed their child to race.

BMX has similar liability paperwork, but enforcement is inconsistent, and too many families assume “the team will handle it.”

No. You must handle it.

If you don’t provide proper documentation, your child is unprotected the moment a crisis hits.

What You Must Send With Your Child — Every Time

If your child is traveling or racing with someone else, these items are mandatory:

✔️ 1. Notarized Temporary Guardianship Letter

Includes:

• full names of both parents and the supervising adult

• dates and destinations

• permission to authorize medical care

• a notary seal

✔️ 2. Medical Treatment Authorization & HIPAA Release

Without this, hospitals cannot legally treat based on another adult’s consent.

✔️ 3. Insurance Cards (Front and Back)

Printed and digital.

✔️ 4. Government-Issued ID for the Child

Critical if your child uses two last names, a hyphenated name, or a nickname in the racing world.

✔️ 5. Emergency Contact Sheet

Parents, guardians, physician, allergies, medical conditions, preferred hospital — all of it.

✔️ 6. Clear Safety Expectations

Parking lot sprinting, unsupervised warmups, and “just messing around” become life-or-death issues fast.

✔️ 7. An Accountability Agreement

You should be able to say:

“If something happens, you stop what you’re doing and take care of my child.”

If they hesitate, your child does not go.

A Final Word to Parents in These Sports

I say often that “the racers are mine.” Not because I gave birth to them, but because that’s what this community should stand for: collective responsibility.

If you take someone’s child with you, that child becomes yours for the duration of that trip.Yours to protect.Yours to comfort.Yours to advocate for.

If you cannot do that — or will not do that — you should not travel with minors.If you abandon an injured child in an ER, you should not lead a team.

And if you scream at women for doing the parenting you refused to do, you should not be anywhere near kids.

Racing is beautiful, brutal, and transformative. But it only stays that way if the adults in the room actually act like adults.

Because no child — ever — should go into surgery alone. Shame on the people that allow it.