Cover photo of Clay Chapiewski: www.clubmx-sc.com

By R.P. Sexton for Murphy News Service

To suggest that Clay Chapiewski is a “mellow guy” is to by no means overstate his demeanor. He IS quiet. His smile is subtle — if not forthcoming, and when he talks, he seems to speak only the words that need to be spoken.

Like many college students, he can be seen strolling the halls of Anoka-Ramsey Community College, sometimes toting a guitar, always lugging a backpack filled with textbooks, and occasionally both; his interest in his phone is no less or more than that of other students, and his class attendance is never in question. One might label him an average guy, except that Chapiewski is also a professional motocross racer.

“It began when I was about 4-years-old,” Chapiewski said. “Some friends of my parents had an old little four-wheeler that their kids would rip around on. I liked it but my dad couldn’t find one like it, so he bought me a small dirt bike instead. It took off from there.”

Racing pals

It turned out that Chapiewski had a kindred spirit in his passion for racing. “My best friend got a bike around the same time and we would race around a track that my dad had built in our backyard.” Jesse Wentland, now a pro racer himself, remembers those days. “I went to Zimmerman High School and Clay went to Elk River,” he said from Havana, Florida, where he is training. “We’re best friends, but we both know it’s a competition.” Chapiewski concurs. “No, there’s not much ‘trash talk’ between us. We see it as a profession,” he said.

The racing circuit in which Chapiewski competes is the Lucas Oil Pro Motocross Championship. The American Motorcycle Association (AMA) is the sanctioning body; its membership is in excess of 200,000. While he is not yet ranked nationally- only the top 100 riders are — Chapiewski recognizes the work it will take enter the ranks of the elite. “It’s going to consist of a lot of cycling, mountain biking, and strength training in the gym,” he said. “I hope to score enough points this season to get ranked nationally.”

Whoops, there they are!

A “whoop” is literally nothing more than a series of mogul-like dirt mounds that riders jump over as fast as they can from start to finish in any motocross race. For Chapiewski, the “bug” of racing his bike while jumping over whoops bit him in earnest when he was a teenager. “I had actually been racing since I was about six; I just wanted to win a get a trophy. But it wasn’t until I was about 15 or 16 that I thought this was really something I could do something with.”

And do something, he did. He won a Minnesota State championship at the seasoned age of 8, and took home top honors in the U.S.A. Team Motocross Championship in Texas when he was 15. “The trophy is taller than I am,” Chapiewski said.

Texas training

Minnesota winters and the pursuit of excellence as a motocross racer do not go hand-in-hand, and so with some help from his dad, Chapiewski has spent the last five winters training in Texas. “I went all in,” he said, “but if you don’t have sponsors or money behind you, it’s pretty much impossible to train like I’ve been able to.” Chapiewski then added “A lot of people don’t understand how important training is for racing; they think you just sit down and twist the throttle. Well, there’s a lot more to it than that; there’s a lot of physical endurance that goes into it. Your body needs to be able to take real beating to ride those bikes.”

In the main, and in consideration of how long he has been competing, Clay Chapiewski has managed to avoid serious injury. Outside of suffering a broken ankle when another racer tumbled onto him, Chapiewski has been lucky. “I know of a couple of guys that got serious head injuries and actually died,” he said, “but I don’t really think about it too much.” The same cannot be said for his 19-year-old girlfriend, Kallie Peterson. “I never even knew what motocross racing was before I met Clay,” said Peterson, who studies the considerably less heart-pounding profession of speech pathology at the University of Minnesota. “The races are really fun to watch, but it IS kind of nerve wracking,” Peterson said.

Racing for a degree

This is the first winter that Chapiewski hasn’t gone to Texas to train since he began the regimen at 16. He opted to remain in Minnesota and continue his education this time around.

“Racing is a huge risk. If I eventually have a family, I don’t want to leave them at risk,” he said. “I want to go to college, have something reliable.”

In Chapiewski’s case, that “something” is being a physical therapist. And according to his Spanish professor, Susan Salazar-Kleiner, he is acquitting himself quite well. “He is a very serious guy; he is very focused,” Kleiner said. “I am surprised to know that he rides motorcycles because we think of that as someone who is very active. Clay is so quiet, but really responsible with class and homework. He is one of my best students.”

He is mellow and quiet, responsible and focused; he is certainly serious. But once racing season begins in June, Clay Chapiewski is anything but average.