13-year-old seeks thrills on 2 wheels

EAGLE MOUNTAIN — Forget team sports and other ballgames, 13-year-old Dominic Weber gets enough champion adrenaline on his own two wheels.

A relative newcomer to the sport, Weber recently took first place in his age bracket for Utah's BMX bike championships and on Oct. 27 he's on to the nationals in Albuquerque.

"I like to ride scooters and pretty much anything with wheels," Dominic said. "It helps keep you in shape ... and it teaches you to work for your goals."

According to his mother, Julie, Dominic is all about setting goals.

His goal for the national championships?

Place in the top three.

How's he going to do that?

"I'm going to do sprints on my bike and do leg lifts to build my muscles bigger and to get my stamina bigger and stuff," he says.

He's also going to keep riding an hour and a half a day, seven days a week near his home in Eagle Mountain. That includes racing his mountain bike and doing jumps and sprints as fast as he can— but after he finishes his homework.

"He pretty much makes sure he comes home and gets his homework done first thing," Julie Weber said, adding that her son recently made honor roll for his academic studies at Willowcreek Middle School in Lehi.

Dominic started out playing baseball but switched to BMX racing a year ago. He always rode his GT mountain bike in the hills with his father, mother and sister, and after talking to a family friend who recommended the sport, Dominic made the change.

"He's loved it ever since," said Jeff Weber, Dominic's dad.

Jeff says he doesn't think BMX racing is any more dangerous than football or baseball. The riders wear jerseys, helmets, elbow and knee pads and chest protectors.

They also wear thick riding pants that "don't really help with cuts, but they kind of help," Dominic says.

As far as bike injuries go, Dominic's been fairly unscathed.

Once, he flew over his handlebars and sprained one of his wrists while riding his bike, but that's about it. For Dominic's parents, that bike accident pales in comparison to when their son's appendix burst last year and he had to have an emergency surgery.

Dominic had just taken third place in his age bracket in last year's state championships — after only racing for four months— when he started having severe pains in his abdomen.

His parents took him to the doctor but were told it was only an upset stomach. But after Dominic threw up for three days in a row, his parents took him to an emergency room where he had an emergency surgery.

"It was really scary," Jeff said. "I've never been so scared in my life."

The surgery took Dominic out of racing for two months, Jeff said.

Aside from learning good sportsmanship skills, as Julie has observed in her son since he started BMX biking, Dominic has learned how to be an example to his little sister.

She says she's thinking about becoming a BMX biker, too, when she gets to fifth grade.

"I think it would be really neat," Julie said. "There's a big girls' class out there. Anything that helps them to set goals and keep them out of trouble, I'm fine with."

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E-mail: achoate@desnews.com

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