DE PERE (NBC 26) — For 16-year-old De Pere native Hank Vossberg, he considers himself just a normal kid. But in the motorcycle world, he’s one of the best in his age group.
“I'm a kid that races motorcycles. I'm not a motorcycle racer who goes to school, you know what I mean,” Vossberg said.
Vossberg, who has been riding motorcycles since he was 2, is heading into his junior year at West De Pere High School. He is still trying to figure out how to balance racing and making sure he turns his homework in.
"It really sucks, especially if I have a bad weekend like I'm sitting in the car and I'm like I have all this homework to do like it's not gonna happen," Vossberg said. "I mean I have to because my parents wouldn't let me race if I didn't.”
Right now, he's in his second season racing professionally and currently riding in the MotoAmerica Twins Cup. However, he learned some valuable lessons from his first year as a pro.
“Last year that was one of the things I had to work on was being an aggressive rider because that's that's how you make the next step is racing is being aggressive on the bike, being able to ride the bike hard but smooth at the same time,” Vossberg said.
WATCH THE STORY HERE!
In Year 2, he’s dominating. He currently leads the Twins Cup by 62 points, winning five out of the eight races so far this season.
“It's not like it's come easy," Vossberg said. "Like each round I've still had to push hard and we still had struggles and we're still developing the bike and I'm still developing as a rider and getting faster each round.”
He hopes to have the championship completely locked up by early August, right after the second-to-last race of the season.
“It's not everybody's dream to win a MotoAmerica championship because it's not super prestige, but it's definitely been one of my dreams,” Vossberg said.
While he’s focused on the current season, he’s already eyeing a step up next year—whether that means racing at the MotoAmerica Supersport level or catching the eye of a World Sportbike team in Europe during an upcoming camp.
“If I go over there and I get destroyed, that's like, OK, now I know what I need to work on, but if I go over there and I know that I'm, you know, I'm not getting destroyed, then, then that's a big confidence booster and that just gives me even more to build on,” Vossberg said.
