Escorting families and prospective students around campus in his purple University Ambassador shirt, Matt Gahrmann hears one question often.
“Do you play sports?”
“No, I race motocross,” he always responds. “But no matter what you do, High Point will support you.”
Last year, High Point University sponsored Gahrmann during his 27 motocross races. But it was more than having the HPU logo on the body of his dirt bike.
HPU allowed Gahrmann to keep his dirt bike in a trailer on campus so he could train every weekend at tracks in North and South Carolina.
All to chase a lifelong dream.
It was a lot of work. But because of HPU’s gracious move, Gahrmann became one of the country’s top amateur dirt-bike racers this year.
He did it in late July at the Rocky Mountain ATV/MC AMA Amateur National Motocross Championship. Nearly 20,000 racers attempted to qualify in 36 classes for one of 1,446 available slots.
Gahrmann snagged one of those prized slots.
The race is marketed as the world’s largest and most prestigious amateur motocross racing program, and it takes place in Hurricane Mills, the tiniest of communities in northwest Tennessee.
But what really makes the race unique is that it unfolds in the most unlikeliest of places: a ranch owned by country music legend Loretta Lynn.
For that reason, Gahrmann calls the big-time race Loretta’s, and when he went this summer, he did well. But to understand Gahrmann’s commitment and his years of practicing and racing, go back 13 years to a time when Gahrmann was 8.
It was Christmas Day, and Gahrmann thought he was heading to the garage to go with his dad to carry out a family tradition: Buy bagels on Christmas.
He was wrong.
Chasing a Dream
“No way! No way! No way!” Gahrmann yelled.
In his family’s garage, he spotted a Kawasaki 65, a classic starter cycle for anyone interested in dirt-bike competition. And Gahrmann was interested in competition.
When he was 6, his parents had bought him a Honda 50 cc dirt bike after he started riding a friend’s Honda 50 at his house. The Honda 50 is a mini-bike, and with his family living on nine acres in north New Jersey, Gahrmann had room to roam.
But he wanted to race.
He began going to a track nearby with his father and a school friend. Gahrmann was a short, wiry kid who raced other boys his age on Honda 50 bikes and finished first, second or third.
But Gahrmann wanted to go faster. He kept asking his parents for a real racing bike, and they always said no. But really, they meant yes, and on Christmas Day 2002, Gahrmann found his gift in the garage.
So began his real racing career.
Bond Between Father and Son
Rich Gahrmann, Matt’s dad, commuted four hours a day from his home in Hillsborough, New Jersey, to his job in New York City where he still works as the information technology director for Banca Imi, a global securities broker.
Despite his long days, he told his son he’d become his mechanic and his driver to help him win a trophy – or two. That is, as long as he kept his grades up.
Rich Gahrmann, though, was wrong about one thing. His son won dozens of trophies. He came in first in at least 50 races.
Over the next eight years, father and son went to hundreds of races, driving everywhere in what Rich Gahrmann calls “old-fashioned style” – in the family’s Chevrolet Silverado pickup truck with the bikes in the back.
One time, they drove 4,000 miles in a month. Another time, they drove 680 miles in one day. Everywhere they went, they bonded. Meanwhile, Gahrmann got better. People noticed.
Kawasaki saw a marketing jewel in this young rider, and the company sponsored him. Soon, the Gahrmanns had at least four Kawasaki dirt bikes parked in the family’s garage for racing.
Gahrmann had discovered his identity, and he loved it.
“It’s like an escape,” he says today of dirt-bike racing. “You’re in your own little world. It’s just you and the bike. You try to go as fast as you can and go off the biggest jumps out there. I liked the freedom of that, and for me, it felt so natural. It’s all you.”
Gahrmann had his moments – and his injuries. He broke 17 bones: both wrists, both legs, both ankles, his right thumb, his left elbow and his jaw.
Gahrmann’s mom, Natalie, would come to the races, and she’d often cry with worry yelling from the sidelines, “Watch out for that guy!”
Gahrmann’s dad felt the same way. He hated to see his son in pain, and dozens of times, he told him, “I’m done with this!”
His son reluctantly agreed. But deep down, he wanted to continue. He told his dad that, and his dad reconsidered. Rich Gahrmann always remembered what his godfather once told him: “Set your goals high, and if you get halfway there, you’re doing good.”
Gahrmann raced until he turned 16, and his dad bought him at least nine used dirt bikes during that time to help him continue. Then, Gahrmann retired – sort of.
He parked his dirt bike because his parents wanted him to focus more on school. But once he got to High Point University and found classmates who loved dirt-bike racing as much as he did, he started riding once again.
And once again, he began thinking of one thing.
Loretta’s.
Reaching a Dream
It started with a conversation his sophomore year.
“Dad, I want to do Loretta’s,” Gahrmann asked.
“Matt, you’re in college, how are you going to manage it?” his dad asked. “If you’re grades go down, it’s over. And it’s all on you. I’m nine hours away, bud, and I can’t come down and fix something.”
Gahrmann figured out how to manage it. He secured his own sponsors, approached HPU about bringing his dirt bike to school, got HPU to sponsor him and found local mechanics who could work on his bikes.
Meanwhile, he practiced, raced and trained.
Last summer at home in New Jersey, he watched his weight by eating his fill of grilled chicken and broccoli. To stay in shape, he ran anywhere from one to five miles a day – sometimes at 3 in the morning because of his summer internship with Target’s management trainee program.
He qualified for Loretta’s first at a race in Kentucky and later at a race in Michigan. Then, he, his dad and his HPU roommates, Ben Cambon and Corey Radcliff, made the trek to Hurricane Mills, Tennessee.
Gahrmann calls it the toughest week of his life.
He lived in an RV, ran a mile in the morning and raced several times a day, sometimes as early as 7:30 a.m. He raced in 100-degree heat, going all out for 20 minutes in what felt like an aerobic workout on a course full of jumps.
He ran into engine problems with both his bikes, and he found it so hot when he raced he had to drop back. The fuel got so hot it was boiling. But he got his engine problems fixed, he continued to race, and he did better.
After it was all over, Gahrmann finished 9th overall in the 450C Class and 13th overall in the 250C class.
And he did it wearing the No. 75 – the badge number of his Uncle Mike, a volunteer firefighter nicknamed “Fireman Mike.” His dad’s brother had been his frequent companion at races and his go-to guy for equipment.
Uncle Mike died Nov. 30, 2014, of encephalitis, an acute inflammation of the brain. He was 56.
“On the line, I thought about him,” Gahrmann says. “I’d think ‘Watch over me, Uncle Mike,’ or ‘This is for you,’ and really, I always think the reason I never got hurt was because Uncle Mike was watching over me.
“I had no bad crashes, and I was going as fast as I ever had.”
Awards Achieved, A Memory Made
Gahrmann is now 21, a HPU senior who will graduate in May. He’s made the Dean’s List every semester, he’s a member of five honor societies, and he was a junior marshal at May’s graduation.
He’s a double major in strategic communication and business administration, and he’s interning now for Winning Link Property Resources, a commercial real estate firm in High Point.
He believes his racing days may be over because after graduation, he knows he will start a career in commercial real estate. Yet, whenever he walks upstairs into his room at Centennial Square II, he’ll see what he set out to accomplish years ago.
He has memories of Loretta’s everywhere he looks: his ticket, his dirt-bike’s front-number plate, his No. 75 jersey and his trophy, a shield more than a foot high.
But it’s more than what he sees. It’s what he feels.
“Everyone’s goal in motocross racing to make it to Loretta’s, and I made it,” he says. “Dang, that is pretty cool.”