Family chooses motocross event at Arena to honor brother

A high-octane motorcycle race is coming to Spokane and a local family is using the event to honor a brother who made motorcycles his life before he tragically decided to take it in 2009.

For the first time, the AMSOIL Arenacross will bring 170 truck- loads of dirt into the Arena to create a racetrack for a couple different classes of riders who compete in races all night long starting Saturday at 7.

The track will then be open at 11 a.m. Sunday for any local riders who want to compete, spokesman Brandon Short said.

“It’s very exciting,” Short said. “There’s a lot going on. It’s super visual. It’s the perfect kind of racing for someone who doesn’t want to sit around watching a NASCAR event for three hours.”

Arenacross riders typically are amateur racers who are gaining experience and earning points to move up to the more prestigious American Motorcyclist Association’s Supercross, Short said. The Spokane race is the 13th of a 15-race Arenacross circuit.

“It’s all the young, amateur kids trying to develop talent,” Short said. “From beginning to end, it’s very action-packed.”

The sponsors are also working with the family of the late Andrew Mills, who grew up in northwest Spokane and graduated from North Central High before starting a career in motorcycles.

Christina VerHeul, who now lives in Nashville, Tennessee, is Mills’ older sister. She is helping sponsor the event by providing a meal for the riders on Saturday. She’s also using the event to allow friends and family to gather to remember Mills, who never had a funeral.

After high school graduation, Mills moved to Southern California and later attended the Motorcycle Mechanics Institute in Phoenix where he finished first in his class, VerHeul said.

Mills worked as an intern for Michael Jordan Motorsports, a racing team owned by the former NBA great, before returning to California to pursue his dream of racing motorcycles.

“He started out on mountain bikes and then did motorcycles,” VerHeul said. “It was his dream and his passion. He decided to make motorcycles his career.”

While racing motorcycles on the weekends, he worked in a shop as a mechanic. But some of his former demons continued to haunt him, VerHeul said.

“Andrew did suffer from depression. We think he did struggle with some level of depression throughout his life,” she said. “We had tried to get him treatment for some time. He tried, but he was resistant to it.”

Then a series of events, including a broken engagement, hit at once.

“It was the middle of a recession,” VerHeul said. “His amateur racing was struggling and the business was struggling. There was no note. We don’t know a lot of details.”

Mills died on Oct. 2, 2009. He was 23.

“I wanted to do something positive with that story,” VerHeul said. “Here’s a young kid with tons of potential. I wanted to do something positive instead of it being about sadness and this depressing, unfortunate thing.”

VerHeul and her husband contacted the Nashville-based Team Faith, a nonprofit outreach ministry that works with people in motor sports.

Participants in motor sports “are surrounded by a lot of tough influences,” VerHeul said. “There are always a lot of parties available … and lots of opportunities for bad choices.”

VerHeul sponsored a meal for all the racers in a similar event in Louisville. At the meal, members of Team Faith lead a prayer, but none of the participants were required to stay, she said.

“I got to speak to the racers,” VerHeul said. “It was an amazing experience … to share that story. That was the best way I could honor my brother. It’s a story about trying to help other people who could be struggling.”

VerHeul heard that Arenacross had scheduled an event in her hometown of Spokane.

“We knew we were going to sponsor again,” she said. “This is a chance for my family and Andrew’s friends to come together and celebrate him, and to share what he loved more than anything.”