The Nugget Newspaper - News and Opinion from Sisters, Oregon

Sisters Young Guns are ace motocross riders. photo provided

A seven-year-old Cinderella is giving up beauty pageant titles to ride her Cobra 50 motocross bike with the boys.

BreAnna McLuskie won "Miss Personality" in the 2003 Cinderella Beauty Pageant in Portland and was awarded alternate beauty winner in the 2003 Cinderella Northwest State Final in Wilsonville. But she won't compete in any beauty pageants this year, said her mom, Dorian McLuskie, because she has found a new love.

BreAnna McLuskie is the only girl on this year's Sisters Young Guns Motocross Team, but that does not intimidate her. Like many of the dozen of Young Guns riders ages six to 15, she rides to win -- and does.

"She has a feminine side -- it's there," Dorian said. "But this year she is not signed up for the Cinderella Pageant because you need to have a talent and she said she can't ride her bike on the stage and she said that's her talent."

Her talent in motocross has won her some new accolades, including nine first-place trophies, six second place and two third during the last 18 months she's been riding, said her parents Dorian and Grant.

She won first place overall in a Pee Wee Madras Series for six-year-olds last year and she won third and fourth place this year in the seven- to eight-year-old class in the Redmond Indoor Northwest Super Cross Championship in March.

Dorian said BreAnna has not incurred any injuries yet, but she did get the wind knocked out of her when two bikes rode over her in a race. But BreAnna is not scared to ride, Dorian said.

"She was only nervous the first few times the gate went down, but now you can't keep her away from it. She's very upset if she doesn't get to ride. She's very headstrong -- go-getter," she said.

BreAnna shares her new-found love with her brother, Brandon Pittman, 16, and her dozen other teammates. The Sisters Young Guns Motocross Team came together as a group of local parents and children early last spring, said Matt Chappell, a parent who helps manage the team.

The team practices together twice a week, and sometimes camps together near weekend races, which are located throughout Oregon.

A group of parents, including Chappell, helped to build a motor cross track on five acres of private property owned by one of the parents. The course cost $2,500 to build, Chappell said.

Members of the team competed in the Madras Motocross in May, which drew about 100 riders from the Northwest. One 13-year -old member of the team, Derek May, won three races in the weekend event, Chappell said.

In that race, the kids rode bikes with 250 to 450 cubic centimeter engines, and rode two six-lap motos from start to finish of each race. The course included sharp right turns and jumps over tables five feet high and 30 feet long. They rode up and down over "whoop-di-doos," a row of 20 three-foot-tall bumps, about three feet apart, Chappell said.

At top speed, members of the team ride about 50 to 60 miles per hour, Chappell said.

Chappell's son, Ben, eight, competes on his King Cobra 50, and Nick, six, rides a KTM 50.

The team will compete in the Pac West race series for four weekends from June 5 to July 11.