Dad will not be there to offer all his mechanical expertise and calm advice, and Mum will not be there with her passionate support and good humour.
It is time for Cormac Buchanan to spread his wings and fly.
The gun Southland motorcyclist is heading back to his home away from home, Spain, to make the exciting leap to the FIM Moto3 World Championship, becoming the first New Zealander in 25 years to regularly ride at the top level.
He will be going alone, too. His parents, Stacey and Kate, have taken turns to help guide him through previous campaigns as the only Kiwi rider in the Red Bull Rookies Cup and JuniorGP World Championship, but they and big sister Mikah will stay behind in Invercargill this time.
"I said to them quite jokingly, ‘I'm a butterfly now and it's time for me to grow my wings’," Buchanan said.
"When you're 18, even if I wasn't racing bikes, I'd be off to uni or being a tradie or whatever. I think, especially in a year where everything's new, it's important I'm there to learn it all by myself. I want to make sure I take in everything quite raw and, I guess, organically, so I can get the most out of everything.
"I feel like if Mum and Dad were with me ... even if something's not going right, no offence to them, they might be trying to sugarcoat it a bit. Whereas, you know, I need the hard truth and the only way I'm going to get that is if I'm there by myself."
That means more responsibility on those young shoulders.
"It kind of scared me a little bit. But after thinking about it a while, it was always going to happen.
"It's the way life goes. I can just say, instead of going to university, I just get to travel the world racing motorbikes.
"Mum and Dad have been incredible. It’s been a big sacrifice for them, and my family's kind of been split apart the last five years.
"I say to them, you know, all the sacrifices you guys put in, I’m making sure that I put my 100% in as well.
"And, you know, considering the fact that I've only been riding road bikes for five years and already I'm in the highest level possible, who knows what's going to happen another five years down the road?
"It's going to take years and years. And my family knows that. Hopefully, in the next few years, we can actually start getting stuff back from it, and I can start ticking off that long list of debt that I have to pay back."
Buchanan will spend close to 11 months this year at his regular base in Barcelona.
He joked that he felt more Spanish than Kiwi sometimes as he had spent so long there.
After three years in the Rookies Cup and two JuniorGP campaigns, it is time to ride with the big boys, and Buchanan is relishing the prospect of joining his new BOE Motorsports team on a KTM 250 for 22 Moto3 races across 18 countries.
"It's a really strong team. I think they were fifth or sixth in the teams championship this past season. So it's a team with a lot of experience, a lot of past success.
"It's always nice, especially as a rookie, to go into a team that knows what they're doing, and a team that knows that they can perform and can give you a good package.
"They’re not putting any excess pressure on me. They're not rushing me or anything like that.
"They're making sure that I have time to develop my skills in the class and that chance to chip away and to improve constantly."
Some of the greats of modern motorcycling have cut their teeth in the Moto3 ranks.
Buchanan expects the action to be faster than the JuniorGP, but not by an intimidating amount.
"I think the big difference is that in JuniorGP, you have five or six guys that are always fast. In world championship, pretty much everyone is fast.
"It really is, you know, the 26 best riders in the world. So I think I'll find that the gaps will be smaller, and I will need to just get up to speed really quickly.
"But that's the good thing about a rookie year, and a team like BOE not putting any pressure on me. It's a year to kind of experience some new tracks and build a base for 2026 and then come out swinging in my second year.
"It certainly doesn't mean I'm going to be slowing down at all. I'll just take it as it comes because we're all there to win, and there's no reason why a rookie can't be there fighting at the front."
Buchanan becomes the first fulltime New Zealand rider in MotoGP since Simon Crafar a quarter of a century ago.
That means a lot to the proud Southlander, who has relished the opportunity to fly the Kiwi flag around the world, and he pointed out it was quite nice that Liam Lawson was stepping into a Formula One gig at the same time.
It will be an intense year, but Buchanan does not intend to lose his boyish enthusiasm for simply riding really fast.
The JuniorGP had just seven races, so to have 15 more big events on his schedule this year was exciting.
"Even if it wasn't in world championship, just getting to race around the world 22 times ... I'd sign up for that. That's the main reason why I'm racing bikes.
"When I was a little kid and there was no goal or aspiration to be a rider racing in world championship, the goal was always just to be on my bike as much as possible. And to be honest, that still hasn't changed.
"There’s more pressure because, you know, it's the highest level of racing in the world. But you can't forget why you first started, because the day that you're not enjoying it, it's the day that it doesn't mean anything to you."
Buchanan has been to most of the European tracks on the Moto3 calendar but can look forward to experiencing a bunch of new countries.
The season starts in Thailand on February 28, and he is particularly eager to get into the rounds in Japan, Texas and Argentina.
Phillip Island - the Australian round is in October - will be the closest thing he gets to a race at home.
While Buchanan is all about speed on two wheels, it seems unlikely he will be taking up motorsport on four wheels any time soon.
He had a wry smile when he told his parents he had been advised he was going just a little slow when he sat his restricted driving test recently.
"I know if you speed on your test, it's an instant fail. So the whole time I was just fixated on not speeding, and I didn't want to do any pull-outs that were a bit risky because they might have given me a critical error or something.
"It was just me being safe. If I wanted to drive like how I do on the racetrack, I could have, but I don't think I would be getting my licence.
"I'm not going to hear the end of that one for the next wee while."
