Rock Spring’s Abigail Jacks recently qualified for the 29th Annual AMA Amateur National Motocross Championship, the largest amateur motocross race in the world.

Jacks, 15, was one of just 1,386 riders who earned starting positions out of the 20,000 that attempted to qualify.

The championship, held annually at Loretta Lynn’s ranch in Hurricane Mills, Tenn. since 1982, will take place Aug. 2-7.

“The Amateur Nationals is the event every motocross racer in the country wants to compete in,” said event director Tim Cotter. “A win there gives a rider instant national notoriety and can serve as a springboard to a lucrative professional motocross career.”

Jacks has been riding since she was nine years old.

With the help of sponsors who have helped pay her way to the races, Jacks has won several races in the last seven years. She competes nearly every weekend at Sand Mountain MX, in Geraldine, Ala.

She is just one of the over 20,000 riders who spent the last four months trying to qualify for the event. The top finishers in area and regional qualifiers earn a birth into the National Championship race.

Racers may enter a wide variety of classes, from minicycle classes for children as young as four, all the way up to a senior division for riders over 50. There are also classes for women and classes for both stock and modified bikes.

Jacks will make the trip to Nationals along with her mom and dad, Jeff and Darlene Jacks, her three sisters, Hannah, Chloe, and Darcy, and her cousins from Europe.

Most of America’s top professional motocrossers, including James Stewart, Ricky Carmichael, Travis Pastrana and Jeremy McGrath, have won AMA Amateur National Championships at Loretta Lynn’s.

The track is built on a section of Lynn's ranch and contains a variety of jumps, corners and other obstacles designed to test the skill and stamina of the riders.

Last year, teenage stars Dean Wilson (California) and Eli Tomac (Colorado), were awarded premier professional contracts for the 2010 season.