Goin’ Pro – Joel Hetrick

Oil City, PA / January 25th, 2011 – There’s good. There’s better. There’s best. Then…there’s Joel Hetrick.
When you search for a single word to describe this eighteen year old from Oil City, Pennsylvania, you will have to dig deep into a dictionary, flip pages until you get to the latter quarter of the book. It’s under the letter ‘U’. It’s called…unique…and means highly unusual, extraordinary, rare.
Joel Hetrick began his extraordinary climb in the world of ATV racing at the tender age of four when his father, Rich Hetrick of Hetrick Racing, would push him across the shop floor on a mini ATV and teach him how to use the brakes. Fourteen years later, after multiple national youth motocross championships and a national Pro/Am motocross championship, Joel Hetrick is…”Goin’ Pro”.
During the 2010 AMA-ATV Motocross Championship, Hetrick laid down some rather impressive numbers. In the Pro/Am Unlimited and Pro/Am Production classes, if you combine his podium runs in both classes, he netted a total of 16 podium appearances. Out of these podium finishes, Hetrick put down 8 event wins in the Pro/Am Unlimited class and 4 event wins in the Pro/Am Production class. He won the Pro/Am Unlimited championship. To add some tasty icing to this ATV racing cake, in 10 out of the series’ 11 events, he set the fastest qualifying lap times in the divisions. With these same times he would have qualified top 5 in the Pro class over 90% of the time. More than once, he turned the fastest lap of the entire event…Pros included.
Unique ATV talent attracts unique sponsors. For the 2011 season, David Eller of Makson Plumbing & Construction, a highly respected, multiple state, general contractor operating out of Salisbury, NC, has come onboard with Hetrick Racing as a major sponsor of Joel’s endeavors in the ATV racing world. Eller, a former racer himself and a long time sponsor of Arenacross racers, sees a rare talent in Hetrick that he feels will pay dividends in the future. When you attract a sponsor such as Makson Plumbing & Construction, you’ve got talent that turns heads…outside the industry.
Not only does Makson Plumbing & Construction see an extraordinary sponsorship opportunity in getting behind Hetrick but numerous other sponsors see his same bright future as well. Hetrick Racing, JB Racing, Maximum RPM, Fly Racing, Elka Suspension, Walsh Race Craft, MotoWorks, Easton, Maxxis, Lone Star Racing, Tiger Racing, Pro Graph-X, Quad Tech, Rage ATV, Rath Racing, Luke Nixon Racing, Precision Racing Products, DWT, Oury ATV Grips, DP Brakes, Fuel Customs, PowerMadd, Outerwears, Rebel Gears, Kal-Gard, Intense Fabrication & Design, and Hinson Clutches…all see Hetrick’s potential.
Training in Texas prior to the opening round of the 2011 AMA-ATV Motocross Championship opener in Washington, Georgia at Aonia Pass on February 26th, Hetrick is setting realistic goals for his rookie Pro season. His father, Rich, stated in an interview that they were hoping to finish in the top five overall, win a few motos and, possibly, make it up on the podium a time or two. As for the week before the season opener, Hetrick will take some time off, stay away from his quad for a few days, then, come the season opener, harass the 2011 MX National Pro class with his highly unusual, extraordinary…rare ATV racing talents.