For Brady Tickle racing sidecars is in his blood.
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His dad Darren and his brother, and his pop Dennis have all raced sidecars at one time.
His pop still does. He raced during the 70s and 80s, but, at age 63, took up the sport again about four years ago.
The story goes that Brady started doing a bit of speedway for fun and after going down to watch him, Dennis decided to start racing again.
That in turn inspired Brady to do it more competitively.
At Oakburn Park on Saturday the Tamworth teenager will be revving up for a tilt at a NSW junior speedway sidecar title.
Tickle will team-up with Inverell's Mitchell Withers, and racing on his home track, will be looking to improve on his second place last year.
The two have been racing together for about a year and have had some great results in that time. Earlier this month they won at the Tamworth Motorcycle Club's Summer Slam.
Fellow Tamworth club members Brad Maher and Jack Opie will also compete in the junior event, along with Tickle's cousin's Cooper and Jesse.
Like his pop Tickle is a rider, moving into the driving seat a couple of years ago.
"I was a swinger (passenger) when I was first learning the ropes," he said.
He got his first taste of being the rider at the nationals at Tamworth two years ago (rain forced the titles to be pushed back to the Sunday and his rider was unavailable) and from that first race he was hooked.
There are different skills involved in the two roles. As the rider you are in charge of most of the controls and "have to be focused all the time".
"If something happens in front of you you've got to be quick to react," Tickle said.
"And you've got to be smooth on the handlebars and throddle."
In preparation for Saturday, as well as well as racing, he has also "done some work to the bike".
"We've got some better parts," he said.
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It will be a busy month or so for the Year 8 McCarthy student.
Early in March he will travel to Adelaide for the South Australian Championships. He will then head to Mildura on March 27-28 for the Australian Championships.
As a warm-up for the nationals, Tickle raced at the Victorian Championships at Mildura in early January, the idea being to get a good look at the track and the different quirks, and work out how he needs to set the gears up and such.
Every track is different, which means the bike set-up has to be different.
Saturday's junior championships will run alongside the senior titles and be supported by longtrack sliders and senior 450cc. Gates open at 1pm with qualifying from 3pm.
