{"id":50837,"date":"2022-07-31T10:45:22","date_gmt":"2022-07-31T14:45:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/?p=50837"},"modified":"2022-07-31T10:45:24","modified_gmt":"2022-07-31T14:45:24","slug":"life-at-speed-budding-motorcycle-star-mcgrane-is-far-from-your-average-teenager","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/?p=50837","title":{"rendered":"Life at Speed: Budding motorcycle star McGrane is far from your average teenager"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Mike McGann<\/strong>, Editor, The Times<\/em> @mikemcgannpa<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"

Logan McGrane<\/p><\/div>\n

GAP \u2014 In a lot of ways, Logan McGrane is a typical 16-year-old.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s got a summer job, like a lot of high school students. And is enjoying his relatively new drivers\u2019 license and of course, he\u2019s working to stay in shape for the next football season at Pequea Valley High School.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s a lot different from most area teens?<\/p>\n

McGrane is a professional American Flat Track motorcycle racer \u2014 running for the first time this year as a professional in the Parts Unlimited AFT Singles series \u2014 which are aired on tape delay most Saturdays on Fox Sports 1. And when not racing on the dirt on tracks around the country, the teen with deep roots in Chester County races on ice in arenas in the winter.<\/p>\n

But to McGrane, it\u2019s all pretty normal. Speaking from his garage\/workshop \u2014 literally 200 feet from the Lancaster\/Chester county line \u2014 he shrugs off his unusual lifestyle. You see, he grew up in a racing family, with his grandfather, father, uncle and surrounded by racing vehicles with two and four wheels. It\u2019s what he\u2019s known his whole life.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy grandfather (Tom McGrane Sr.) started racing, he raced cars all over Pennsylvania,\u201d Logan McGrane said. \u201cHe raced modified. And then my dad (Tom McGrane Jr.) was born and he couldn\u2019t race a car until he was 16, so he decided to race motorcycles.\u201d<\/p>\n

That led to Kyle McGrane \u2014 Tom. Jr\u2019s younger brother \u2014 to start racing and ultimately, Logan, to do so. Kyle, only a few years older than his nephew, was emerging as a top talent in both flat track and ice racing, when he was killed in a racing accident in Santa Rosa, CA, in the fall of 2016.<\/p>\n

Obviously, it was a devastating shock to the family and then following the death of a close family friend on the track earlier this season\u2014 briefly \u2014 there was a thought of Logan moving from bikes to cars.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWhenever, I\u2019m done racing motorcycles, I\u2019ll probably jump into a Sprint Car,\u201d he said. \u201cMy grandfather, right now, would sell every motorcycle in this garage and buy me a car, if I said so.\u201d<\/p>\n

But after the death of 24-year-old racer Ryan Varnes in upstate New York earlier this season, it gave everyone pause about the dangers of the sport.<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter my uncle passed away and we had a close family friend (Varnes) pass away three weeks ago \u2014 he was my uncle\u2019s best friend \u2014 it was rough. He (his grandfather) said the Sunday morning after \u2018we\u2019re selling everything, we\u2019re done and I\u2019ll buy you a car.\u2019 But the next Saturday, we were back at the races.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Coming from a racing family, it is what you do. You understand \u2014 and respect \u2014 the danger. But racing is in the blood, being on the track is where racers like Logan feel at home \u2014 he\u2019s been competing since he was a little kid, learning to ride at age four and winning amateur national titles at age 15.<\/p>\n

At this point, for him, racing a high-speed motorcycle is like walking for most of us, just something that comes naturally.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s been more of a challenge is moving from the amateur ranks to the pro series. The talent is extreme and all of the racing equipment is top-notch. Tiny things make a big difference in finishes.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s been a really big change,\u201d Logan said. \u201cThe competition is way higher, everybody is fast. My whole amateur career, I was a top-three amateur and now my best finish has been in 11th in the pro. Everybody is so fast, it\u2019s thousands of seconds, hundredths and thousandths of seconds, it\u2019s that close.\u201d<\/p>\n

Running with a family team, the budgets are tight and highly dependent on local sponsors. Week in and week out, Logan goes up against teams with factory support and the latest and greatest parts. But he wouldn\u2019t change it \u2014 running for his family team is exactly what he wants to do.<\/p>\n

\u201cFamily owned teams are where it is at, it all comes from the heart,\u201d Logan said.<\/p>\n

When he\u2019s not racing \u2014 or studying (he attends online school \u2014 it\u2019s the only way to keep up with his schedule) \u2014 he loves playing high school football.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been playing football since I was eight,\u201d he said. \u201cI started at Twin Valley because I lived over there and then three years ago I moved to Pequea and started playing with them. That\u2019s my second sport.\u201d<\/p>\n

With a much heavier schedule \u2014 and a lot more travel \u2014 it can be difficult to make time for football now, as much as he loves the sport.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis year has been the hardest because being pro,\u201d he said. \u201cIn amateur, it wasn\u2019t big \u2014 but if you want to make your name in pro, you have to be at everything, be at every race. I might miss a football game or two because of races that I have to be at.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said the coaching staff at Pequea Valley has been understanding \u2014 knowing that racing has to be the priority, as much as he really enjoys playing \u2014 he plays both offensive line and linebacker.<\/p>\n

\u201cI love football,\u201d he said. \u201cIf I weren\u2019t racing, I\u2019d have my full focus on football.\u201d<\/p>\n

But he is racing, and is one of the youngest riders in his class and he says he sees a long future for himself on the track.<\/p>\n

\u201cI want to be just racing motorcycles,\u201d he said. \u201cThat\u2019s been my goal since I was a little kid. I want to be able to race, make enough money that I can pay the bills.\u201d<\/p>\n

Speaking this past week, he talked about his upcoming schedule, which starting last Friday, is pretty grueling.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI leave Friday morning for Illinois, I\u2019ll race Saturday, get home Sunday – do everything to to the bikes and then leave Monday morning. I\u2019ll go to Kansas first, to race Tuesday and Wednesday at an outlaw (unsanctioned by AFT) race, then we\u2019ll go up to South Dakota \u2014 Sturgis \u2014 at the Black Hills half-mile race circuit, Saturday. Depending on how we do, we might stay longer because there\u2019s a bunch more races after and I can make a good amount of money from them.<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter that, we\u2019ll come home. Aug. 20 is Sacramento, CA \u2014 I\u2019m riding a bike out there for somebody out in California, \u2014 so we\u2019re going to fly out to that one. After that, we go back to Illinois for the Springfield Mile \u2014 which is the world\u2019s fastest mile \u2014 for two days of racing. We\u2019ll be there Labor day weekend.\u201d<\/p>\n

While the schedule lightens up \u2014 a bit \u2014 in the fall, it\u2019s still pretty much a 12-month schedule when you add in arena ice racing, training time in Florida, and all the work needed to keep the bikes in top shape.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a lot of work and a lot of travel, but Logan McGrane wouldn\u2019t change anything: he loves being on the track and wants to be the best out there.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s anything but typical \u2014 as teenagers go \u2014 one literally driven to succeed in a very tough sport.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Mike McGann, Editor, The Times @mikemcgannpa GAP \u2014 In a lot of ways, Logan McGrane is a typical 16-year-old. He\u2019s got a summer job, like a lot of high school students. And is enjoying his relatively new drivers\u2019 license and of course, he\u2019s working to stay in shape for the next football season at […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":50836,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[14660,10285,14659,14661,5424],"class_list":["post-50837","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-community","tag-american-flat-track","tag-feature","tag-logan-mcgrane","tag-motorcycles","tag-racing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50837","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=50837"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50837\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":50838,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50837\/revisions\/50838"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/50836"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=50837"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=50837"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=50837"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}