Like many teenagers wanting to break into professional motorsport, 17 year old Mitch Evans is having to juggle his school and racing commitments.
Mitch is in his final year at Cairns High School and is caught up in text books and homework through the week.
But Mitch is also a major player in this years’ Under 19 MX Nationals championship that starts on April 3, so when the weekend comes around it’s time to jump onto the dirt bike.
So far Mitch has been able to juggle things successfully, maintaining good results at school while still scoring well on the track.
Even as his school demands have increased, he won the 2014 Australian Junior Motocross Championship, and then the SXD (u19) division at the Australian Supercross Championship last year.
“I would love to be able to just race full time and to be a professional racer is my goal but at the moment, my parents and I believe it’s important to have a good education so I have other opportunities in life if the motocross career doesn’t work out,” explains the well-spoken North Queenslander.
“At the moment, I have to balance a few things to make it work and it can be tough when I’m away racing and have assignments due at the same time.”
Mitch has exams and a school camp in the week leading up to the opening round of the 2016 MX Nationals.
But he says the burden has been reduced since joining the Yamalube Yamaha Team in 2015, and that has reduced some of the pressure on the family and on his own time.
Young Mitch is now getting a taste of what it’s like to be in professional motorsport.
The team takes care of the race bikes and travel, and he flies to and from the race meetings.
He says it means he doesn’t miss as much school and he’s not wasting time sitting in a car driving up and down the coast every other weekend.
The end of the year will bring on a big decision for Mitch – whether to go to University and continue his studies or chase his racing dream.
“I hope to be able to secure a full time ride with a MX2 team next year so I can focus on racing and see where it takes me. You only have a small window to make a career out of racing and I would like to put 100% into that. I can always go back to Uni,” Evans shrugs!