Submitted by Christina Parker, Tulalip tribal member
Our 11 year old son Sage Parker aka “Savage Sage” has been competing in the UTV Takeover events for a few years. In April, Sage was at a race competition and ended up having a pretty intense roll, he flipped 3 times and totaled his cage and caused other damage on his car. We had to scramble to get his car rebuilt for the UTV Takeover Event that he practices for year around that started June 25.
Thankfully we were successful in getting his car repaired and ready for the events. Sage competed in the “Huckfest” competition on June 29. There is not a youth class for Sage to compete in, so he’s competing against grown adults.
There were so many cars that showed up to compete, they were able to break the competition into two classes, one for cars with Turbo and a NA Class (non-turbo). All of his hard work paid off and Sage won 1st place in the non-turbo class and jumped 82 feet. The 2nd place winner in non turbo class got 64 feet.
I have a lot of videos of it from the inside of his car, outside of his car and my perspective of the video, it’s fantastic! Sage is the youngest in the history of this sport to compete and win this competition and we believe he’s the only Native American competing in this sport.
Sage is an athlete/ambassador with the UTV Takeover Team and has two more events for 2024. September 3thru September 8 at Winchester Bay Dunes in Oregon and October 15 thru October 20 at Sand Hollow State Park in Hurricane Utah.