When they heard about Ethan Asher’s injuries in an August car crash, Talan Hooper and Josh Ashcraft knew they wanted to support their fellow Powell High School student.

“We really wanted to think of something to help Ethan, but we didn’t know like how,” Hooper recalled. “So we just ended up putting our skills as motocross racers together to figure it out.”

In the span of just a couple weeks, the 14-year-old freshmen organized an Oct. 12 Race to Recovery at the Park County Fairgrounds to benefit the Asher family. Hooper and Ashcraft collected donations from more than 50 sponsors, drew in more than 50 riders — including from Montana, Colorado and Idaho — and raised nearly $6,000 for the Ashers.

They don’t plan on stopping there, either, as they want to make Race to Recovery an annual event.

“We’ll just find any other local person or family that needs help and we’ll help them out,” Ashcraft said of next year’s benefit.

In 2020, however, Hooper and Ashcraft will start planning the event a little bit earlier instead of at the last-minute; their parents had been a little skeptical that the boys would be able to pull off the race in such a short timeframe.

As Hooper and Ashcraft started putting up flyers, “we, as parents, were kind of like, ‘OK, guys, you need to put the brakes on a little bit, we need to come up with insurance’ and this, that and the other,” said Josh’s mom, Sami Carroll Ashcraft. However, she said, “that’s the day they got together, just the two of them, hit the streets and started gathering up money.”

By that evening, the boys had $1,020 in hand and the race was on.

While it was nerve-wracking to go door-to-door, “we were ready to do it,” Josh Ashcraft said, adding, “it just took us one afternoon of busting our tails and we just got it done.”

Only a couple businesses turned the teens down — and that was because they had already donated to the Asher family, Ashcraft said.

“It was amazing and it helped a lot,” Hooper said of the support from local businesses. “Without them helping, we wouldn’t have been able to do it.”

Donations ranged from cash to rental equipment to fireworks for an opening display to elbow grease that helped build the track.

While their primary aim was to support Ethan Asher — Ashcraft knows the PHS senior well after working with him on a daily basis on a local farm — the teens also were excited about putting on a local motocross race.

“Motocross is a dying sport, so we’re trying to build it back up,” Hooper said.

He’s been riding motorbikes for eight years and Ashcraft for about 3 1/2 years, but with the elimination of the Endurocross Challenge at the Park County Fair, the closest competitions are usually in Billings.

Not all local racers can afford to make that trip and pay up to $140 in entry fees, so “we’re just trying to get the sport back here in Powell,” Ashcraft said.

Entering the Race to Recovery cost just $20, with 10 different classes of competition ranging from smaller 50cc bikes to larger 450cc machines.

The track layout itself featured a combination of ideas from Ashcraft (who prefers track racing) and Hooper (who prefers free riding).

As for how the design played out with the competitors, “the riders loved it and they want us to go bigger next year,” said Ashcraft.

“And we will,” Hooper said.