The past year has been as much a rollercoaster as it has been a whirlwind for Gardnerville Ranchos resident Tyler Moore.
Just nine months removed from major shoulder surgery, Moore will compete in the Amateur National Arenacross Championships at Sam Boyd Stadium in Las Vegas this weekend.
"It's been up and down quite a bit this year," Moore said.
Moore, a 15-year-old who goes by T-Mo, broke into the motocross racing world six years ago, but last June he took a shot at his first national event.
"It was an eye-opener," Moore's dad, Rod, said. "We just brought a stock bike up. We showed up there and everyone else had these big teams with their own mechanics, custom bikes and even nutritionists.
"It was a pretty impressive field to start out against."
It didn't get much better at first.
"I was just hoping for a top 10 finish, best-case scenario," Tyler Moore said. "I ran a gate and it was probably the worst moto of my life. There were about 40 guys ahead of me."
Moore recovered nicely, though, and ended up taking sixth.
"I was really pumped to get that out of nationals," he said.
It wasn't long after that he picked up his first major sponsor, Testa Motorsports in Minden.
"They really helped me out a ton," Moore said.
Indeed, things were looking up for Moore. He was leading a race in mid-August when he slid out on a corner before his shoulder met up with an unforgiving hay bale.
"I just took the corner wrong," he said. "I popped my shoulder back in and kept going, but it didn't feel good."
He ended up taking second in the race, and rode two more races that day, winning both. But the damage was done.
"I knew it was pretty bad," he said. "I could feel it keep sliding back out of joint."
Surgery left him without the ability to practice on a bike for seven months.
"I was definitely bummed," he said. "This is something I've been doing consistently every day since I was 9 years old. It set me back so much, but it made me hungry too. I just wanted to get back on the bike and do more."
After a heavy rehab program, Moore was ready to get back on the bike but he and his family first had to consider what direction they were going to go next.
Somewhere along the way, the idea of arenacross came up.
"We thought, it's not quite as high speed as what he had been doing and he's always been a strong jumper," Rod Moore said of his son, who has record a jump of more than 140 feet on his bike. "He's a very technical rider, so we thought the arenacross format might suit him pretty well."
So Moore took a little less than a month to prepare for the Amateur National Arenacross West Region series and raced in his first event in early Feburary.
"I've never really done a series of any type," Moore said. "But, I've always been a technical rider and I honestly thought this might be my time to shine."
He thought right.
At his first race, in Fresno, he finished third. From there, he put together enough points to win the West Region championship and earn an invite to the national championships, which only accepts the top four in points from each of the five regions across the country.
"I went into it not knowing how I was going to do," Moore said. "I didn't know if I'd be finishing last or first or somewhere in the middle. I didn't have any expectations at all.
"It felt really good to get on the podium my first time out (at Fresno). After that, I knew I could run up there."
The nationals run through this weekend, after which Moore will begin preparing for his next adventure.
He has a number of offers to ride for some bigger companies, which would include programs to help him along toward becoming a professional rider, not to mention supplying bikes and the necessary mechanical work.
Moore said he hopes to compete in national events as far away as Texas and Tennessee in the upcoming year.
Moore's success on the national stage has added to the growing list of local riders making their way in the professional motocross world. That's a fact that hasn't gone unnoticed by Rob Taylor, the owner of Moore's main sponsor - Testa Motorsports.
"You look where we live, you can do anything here," Taylor said. "Skiing, water skiing, snowboarding, motocross, desert racing. It breeds a lot of success in the extreme sports in the area.
"We go out of our way to try to support the local riders and athletes. It's exciting to know we are attracting such racers to our community and our shop."
It's help the Moore and his family have been especially appreciative of.
"There are so many people that have put us in the position we're in," Moore said. "All the people at Testa, Adam Conway and his whole family. Dustin Peterson helps me during the week to get faster and Russell and Christy Fonoimoana have done so much to support us. I'm thankful to all of them."
Joey Crandall can be reached at (775) 782-5121, ext. 212.
