Week after week, it’s the same story. Rough weekend, need to retreat and rework the plans. Joe has been struggling to get over that little bump in the road. It gets tougher every day, but I have to say that I am proud of what he has accomplished in his life and what he will accomplish in his future.

With that said, here is how the week went for both of us. Joe took Monday and Tuesday off to try and heal up his still sore elbow from San Francisco. He took a horrendous road bike ride with his work out buds and spent a couple hours huffing and puffing in the cold air. He was pretty drained when he got back, but he knew it was a good workout. Like I mentioned before, it is pretty cool that all the riders are friends…well most of them!

Joe tends to ride a lot with the guys that live up here by us. Most of the high desert riders, like Gosselaar, Preston, the Alessi’s and Joe usually train or ride together during the week. So it’s nice to see that they are always helping each other out by pushing each other to get to the next level. It’s been good for Joe to ride with these guys, he does great with them on the practice track, but when it gets to race day, there are so many other factors in place. Other riders that you just struggle with getting by or their mistakes end up being your mistakes because you are in the wrong place at the wrong time…either way, it stinks!

Joe rode at the KTM test track on Wednesday and Competitive Edge on Thursday to get the bike more dialed in. He ended up meeting the Leatt Brace people at the test tracks on Wednesday and was finally able to get the brace set up for his liking. For those of you that don’t know what that brace is, it’s a neck brace designed to lower the amounts of neck injuries drastically. You might have seen the video that David Bailey did on Racer X this past week about the brace. He called out the professional riders and really made it known that this protection is here for a reason, there should be nothing stopping them from wearing it. I figured with this calling out of sorts by Bailey, there would have been a lot more pro’s wearing the device in San Diego. To my dismay, I only saw a handful – Joe, Windham, Josh Grant, Michael Sleeter and a couple others. Well, it’s not rapid fire, but at least the fans are seeing that this sport is demanding and these riders see the need to be protected. After all, they don’t have anything to protect them like the other racing sports do with cars and all.

I worked late on Friday and sent Joe and Gerald down to San Diego to stay at a friend’s house close by the stadium. I drove the two hours on Saturday morning and got to the track just before the rider’s meeting. Joe started the day off a little slow in practice, not too comfortable on his bike. With some changes before the second practice, he was feeling better.

He started the heat race with probably the best start of the year. He came out about 12 th despite being squeezed in the first turn. He ended up 10 th – missing the main by 1 again…just 1…he just needs that little bit of help to get past that bump…sooo frustrating!!! He rode the heat race the best I have seen him ride in some time. He looked very comfortable on the bike and felt good. He ended up starting off good in the LCQ again, but made a couple of mistakes on the last lap that allowed a group of riders to pass him for 11 th place.

I can’t express to you how frustrating this process is for Joe. I can only say that I am happy to hear that Joe is still very well supported in this industry. For my line of work, I constantly get asked about Joe and how he is feeling. Everyone wants to make sure that his neck is good – it is great! There are no hang ups at all with his neck. He is just struggling right now to get his groove back.

I want to thank everyone who has supported and still supports Joe to this day. This past outdoor season was Joe’s toughest mentally. This supercross season isn’t fairing any better for him. I hope that you can continue to support him as he consistently challenges himself to get back to the “old Joe”. He is much better than the results he is posting and I hope that those that have followed his career know that his best is yet to come.

Thanks for reading again this week. Keep up the cheers for Joe and know that he appreciates it more than you could ever know!