A young girl leans back in a lawn chair, clutching a Red Bull. A royal blue motorcycle sits nearby.
"My name is Charlotte, I’m 9 years old," she says into the camera. "I’ve been racing for four years, I’ve been riding for five."
Charlotte Kainz was the first young female motorcycle racer Wendy Schneider met back in 2006, when she set out to document the amateur racing scene in Lake Mills, Wisconsin.
For the next three years, Schneider, an independent film director from Wisconsin, documented young flat track motorcycle racers at amateur races across the Midwest.
The result is a forthcoming documentary film, "Angels of Dirt," currently under production.
There was something about the sport Schneider loved. The young girls on the track — many just kids — had a confident, fearless spirit as they raced around the dirt track.
"I equate it to doing something like climbing Mount Everest. I don’t think you do it because you're fearless, I think you do it because you can," Schneider said. "But having that access to be fearless is what gives you the experience to become who you are in relation to any passion that you want to live out."
The focus for the project changed considerably just last year. Kainz, then 20, was killed in a crash during a race in Santa Rosa, California. She was just finishing up her first season as a professional racer.
"I think her humility, her drive, her intellect and her talent racing were really what drew me to her and to a lot of people," Schneider said. "She’s really become the thread that’s going to help tell the story of the fearless girls that race motorcycles."
Schneider said some girls begin in the sport as early as 4 or 5 years old. And though the sport has traditionally been more open to men than women, Schneider said many girls have found room to thrive.
"Every kid that I’ve ever seen at a motorcycle track has a smile on his or her face," she said. "There’s an element of friends, family, community, you know, around these kids all the time. The environment is really conducive to just having fun."
It's hot, dusty and loud. The smell of burgers and brats wafts through the track. And the racing community is tight-knit, Schneider said. The people make the sport what it is.
Despite the thread of tragedy, Schneider said she’s not making the documentary to scare people away from the sport, or discourage new riders. On the contrary, she said she wants girls to feel empowered to do whatever they want to do.
"This is about honoring and celebrating who (Kainz) is, not only to me, but to her friends and family. That sort of trumps trauma," Schneider said. "I think you have to move forward because that’s the only way to go with this."
