Roderick Sanders Jr. first drove a four-wheeler at the age of 3.
He learned to ride a dirt bike three years later.
When Sanders Jr. was 7 years old, his grandfather, Doug Frierson, built him a drag bike.
He hasn’t gotten off the bike since.
Now 17, the New Hope High School senior has achieved a No. 1 ranking in professional drag racing.
Sanders Jr. leads the Grothus Ultra 4.60 division in the Man Cup Motorcycle Drag Racing series. He will look to extend his 34-point lead this weekend at Rockingham Dragway in North Carolina.
“This series is where you have the best of the best,” Sanders Jr. said. “It’s right under NHRA. You have Larry McBride — top fuel drag bike — Dave Vantine, big companies like Cooper Performance. It feels good just to compete in this series. It’s growing each race.”
It doesn’t faze Sanders Jr. that he is the youngest competitor in the division. He has been racing for nearly 10 years. His father, Roderick Sanders Sr., brother, Corey, and Frierson all raced drag bikes. His dad has trained him and his grandfather has built his bikes since he started competing. Even his mother, Sara, “rides occasionally.”
“Everyone knows the Sanders family rides motorcycles,” Sanders Jr. said, “and they know we’re fast and hard to beat.”
Sanders Jr. won the last Man Cup event in July, taking the 4.60 division in Memphis, Tennessee. He has proven “hard to beat,” and he hasn’t been intimidated by his competition — as many as 30 more experienced racers at each event — except his first competitive race against “grown men.”
“I had a nervous breakdown,” Sanders Jr. said. “It was so much pressure because it was my first race. The last time I stopped getting nervous was my first race this year. My bike is so consistent now; I have so much trust in it. I’ve been riding it for three years now. I burn out, go through, and it’s clockwork.”
Sanders Jr. describes his current form as “on a roll” and “on the ball.” He’s competing across the Southeast in as many as 20 races this year, and doing it while playing wide receiver for the New Hope High football team. He also is preparing for a career in the Air Force after he graduates high school.
But with a full racing schedule and a chase for a points title, why add football to mix?
At one time in his life, it was his only competitive outlet.
“I really wasn’t a fan of football until my brother got onto me,” Sanders Jr. said. “He lived in Nashville a couple of years ago and asked me if I’d come up there to play for him. I went to school up there for a year. When I was up there, I wasn’t old enough to race. The age limit for racing is 16.”
When Sanders Jr. gets out of football practice at 6:30 p.m., he works on his bike until midnight. The maintenance, much like on race day, is detailed and tedious. It’s a must, but Sanders Jr. isn’t alone. His race team is deep and spread out across the region.
Frierson lives in Albany, Georgia. DeShawn Whellers, a racer and machinist in Louisville, Kentucky, also helps maintain his bikes.
“My granddad has been in the game for a long time,” Sanders Jr. said. “He’s 67 now. He has so many connections. I give it all to God. His circle is so big. He can make one phone call and he has the part right then. Every time something goes wrong — I can’t do things inside the motor — he’s my mechanic. We typically meet him in Montgomery (Alabama), where he takes the bike back home with him and works on it. I don’t know how he does it, how he remembers all this.”
Even when his grandfather can’t make a race, his presence is there — and still beating other racers.
“I literally have the oldest chassis … everyone has a bike that was built in the last 10 years,” Sanders Jr. said. “This is my granddad’s old bike from 20 or 30 years ago. Every time I race, they’re like, ‘Oh my God, how is this happening?’ It’s a push-button bike, the shortest and oldest out there. It feels good to have this success on this bike.”
Sanders Jr. has two more Man Cup races left this season, including the world championships in November.
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