I came into the world of riding later than most people. And my reason was different from many, I’m sure.

There’s no doubt riding has helped me keep my sanity.

I lost my beautiful 17-year-old daughter, Kelli, to a car crash in April 2004. There is no describing the pain of losing Kelli, and I won’t even try here.

What I want to share is how riding kept me sane while I learned to live, while living wasn’t something that I was all that interested in doing anymore.

My son, Brian, had been riding in hare scramble events and motocross races for many years, and we went to all his races, pitted for him and enjoyed the family atmosphere.

I am not sure what ever made Brian think I should race, but once he got it into his head, the idea stuck and he kept encouraging me until I agreed.

In February 2006, I had purchased a Yamaha TTR90 and felt that was all the bike I would ever need. A few months later, I purchased a Yamaha TTR125, the perfect bike for my 5-foot-tall frame.

Brian and my nephew, Pete, who also raced, took me out in the woods and taught me to clutch, how to start moving again when stopped on an uphill and how to start the bike on a downhill—all the essentials.

In August, I sat on the starting line of my first hare scramble at Thunder Ridge in New Berlin, N.Y. I was crying, wondering what on Earth I was doing there—a 44-year-old grieving mother with relatively no riding experience.

But, when the green flag went up, I started to ride.

I fell so many times in that first race. It was tough. But I finished the race, at my own pace, got the checkered and was hooked.

I only participated in two races that year and three the following year. But, in 2008, I participated in every Western New York Off Road Association hare scramble event, all 14 of them.

I continued riding hare scramble events for the next three years and had the most wonderful experiences. It was so hard and so challenging and rewarding. And I met great people on the track—riders, workers and spectators.

I loved that Brian and I were the only mother and son pair competing in the WNYOA series on the track together. It was an entire family experience—my husband, my two younger children, my mom and dad and my mother-in-law all were supporters of our racing.

My brother raced and several nephews, with their families supporting them. It was such a sweet experience.

If you have never lost a child, it is difficult to understand how that one thought can be with you 100 percent of the time. Kelli was on my mind, no matter what I was doing. Whether I was alone or with other people, she absolutely was never out of my mind. Whether I was quiet or conversing, Kelli was there. Most grieving parents can relate to that.

This was the case for me until I started riding in hare scramble events.

When riding in the woods, through all sorts of terrain, with 200 to 450 other riders, you have to stay very focused on what you are doing and what is happening around you. I don’t think anything else could have trained me to control my thoughts the way riding hare scramble did.

I had to learn to put all thoughts out of my head, except the here and now on the track.

I did many things to learn to live without my Kelli. I call them my therapies. but riding was one of the best therapies I could have ever imagined.

Aside from retraining my mind, riding is physically very hard. The bike would get stuck in all sorts of predicaments that required strength and determination to get back to riding. At times, just keeping the bike upright when I was exhausted took all the willpower I had.

There is no doubt that I needed something so physically demanding to help me through those first years of grief. Riding provided me with something that I could never have received from anything else.

I am forever grateful to Brian for leading me, kicking and screaming, into the dirt bike world. My only regret is that my precious Kelli never got to be part of my racing years. She’d have gotten such a kick out of it.

Luann Ford is an AMA member from Newark Valley, N.Y.