She’s Growing Up Fast : At 8, Heather Matthews Is Off-Road Racing Veteran

Heather Matthews scoots and bumps and grinds her way through major stadium motocross races to the cheers of enormous crowds.

She’s a mini-celebrity who often signs autographs at off-road exhibitions, and she recently appeared on a live television talk show.

She has a corporate sponsor who covers her equipment and travel expenses.

All that, and she’s a Brownie Scout, too.

Heather is only 8 years old, a 4-foot, 55-pound, blue-eyed blonde with no shortage of show-and-tell topics for her class at Greenville Fundamental School, where she’ll be a third-grader this fall.

She’s been involved in off-road racing since she was small enough to fit into a motorcycle helmet, attending her first motocross when she was 6 weeks old. She started riding four-wheeled, all-terrain vehicles at 2.

These days, Heather is usually the only girl among boys competing in Pee Wee motocross exhibitions at Mickey Thompson Off-Road events and in weekend events at Perris Raceway.

She has ridden in Anaheim Stadium, the Rose Bowl, the Los Angeles Coliseum, San Diego Jack Murphy Stadium and Sun Devil Stadium in Tempe, Ariz. She has performed before as many as 70,000 spectators.

Heather’s racing wardrobe is no less impressive than those of the top motocross riders: She has a helmet with an intercom system and wears specially designed boots, pants, jersey, goggles, kidney belt, gloves . . .

“The whole nine yards,” said Debbie Matthews, Heather’s mother and a professional motocross rider.

Heather’s Yamaha 50cc bike is about two-feet high, reaches top speeds of about 30 m.p.h., and her presence on it sometimes irritates fathers--but rarely mothers--on the Pee Wee circuit.

“It’s kind of funny--the fathers will be yelling at their boys to ‘get that girl!’ ” Debbie Matthews said. “And their moms will be right behind them yelling, ‘Go, Heather!’ ”

Heather, who will participate in the Mickey Thompson Off-Road Championships in the L.A. Coliseum July 20, has placed among the top 10 at six stadium exhibitions and won three races at the Pee Wee Division 2 level before recently moving up to Division 1.

“Those are the experts,” Heather said.

Heather seemed shy during a recent interview, coming off a little less gregarious than her 5-year-old brother, Ryan, who had no qualms about tugging at a reporter’s arm and asking, “Wanna wiggle my tooth?”

But Debbie said Heather’s true personality emerges on the track.

“She’s real confident and aggressive,” said Debbie, who owns and operates a motorcycle racing accessories store in Santa Ana. “She hole-shots (goes for the lead out of the starting gate) every race. The boys hate it. So do their dads.”

Heather has already developed a knack for showmanship. “I went no-hands across the finish line at Perris,” she said. “My mom was shocked.”

So are some dads when Heather beats their sons.

“Some fathers talk about protesting because they think it’s the bike and not her,” Debbie said. “Now they know it’s her because she has done it so consistently.”

Of course, it doesn’t hurt having a mother with an extensive off-road racing background. Debbie has been riding motorcycles since she was 15 and won the women’s veteran (over-30) national motocross championship in 1988. She still competes about every other weekend.

When Matthews, whose husband, Brian, competes in marathons and triathlons, began bringing Heather to motocross events, Heather naturally gravitated toward the sport--especially in the beginning.

“She crashed three times in her first race, and I didn’t think she’d want to race again,” Debbie said. “But she said she loved it and was hooked. We said, ‘Oh no, what have we gotten ourselves into?’ ”

A major expense, that’s what. Heather’s bike cost about $900, and her racing gear, an annual expense because Heather outgrows things every year, amounts to about $600. A new modified bike, which Debbie says Heather needs to be competitive in Division 1, will cost about $3,000.

But two weeks ago, Jeff Bennett, the owner of Nature’s Recipe Pet Foods in Corona, agreed to pay for Heather’s equipment, travel costs and entry fees, making her one of the youngest corporate-sponsored riders in the country and easing the financial burden on her parents.

“It’s going to save us $5,000 to $10,000 a year,” Debbie Matthews said. “This will definitely help her future and it’s good for the sport as a whole. However, if she were to decide in a month that this wasn’t fun anymore, I wouldn’t push her to do it.

“I don’t believe in the Little League syndrome at all. Even though she’s getting a lot of attention, she’s still the same little girl and we’re going to keep her that way. She could be the women’s national champion by the time she’s 13, but the bottom line is it has to come from the kid.”

Heather doesn’t seem any different than your average 8-year-old. She said she likes beating up on her younger brother. She’s a good student, she played T-ball last year and is involved in Girl Scouts.

“We make projects and things,” Heather said of her Brownie meetings. “I’ve got to be nice because I can’t run into a lot of people like I do on my motorcycle.”

Heather said some of her friends think she’s a show-off because of the notoriety she’s received, but that doesn’t bother her.

“I don’t really care what they say,” Heather said. “I just want to race.”