This weekend was yet another rough one for Joe. He missed the main again by just a few. In the LCQ, the top 8 guys were 8 seconds apart all together…a pretty tight crowd! Joe prepared as much as he could for this weekend. He rode the Atlanta Supercross Track layout for two weeks at Competitive Edge. He had it dialed, but the Georgia clay proved to be a bit more rutted than he expected.

He took Monday off as he always does and relaxed with Leum – our 5 month old. Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday were spent at Competitive Edge with Gerald and Joe working on even more fine tuning of the KTM 450SX.

Friday morning, they left very early to head to the airport. With a winter storm coming to hit the mountains on Thursday night, they weren’t sure of the conditions. Luckily, the storm just covered the mountains in snow and left the highways alone. They made it into Atlanta early Friday evening. Joe was pretty pumped on the flight because while they were waiting in Phoenix to get to Atlanta, there were some people that worked at Chick-Fil-A on his flight. That is by far Joe’s favorite place to eat. The sweet tea and the chicken are his favorite, nothing compares for him! He got to chat about the restaurant chain and even got some free meals out of it. That made him a happy man!

Joe got to catch up with his brother Rick on Saturday morning at the hotel. They hadn’t seen each other since last summer at the outdoor nationals. Rick had driven down from North Carolina where he is stationed with some of his fellow Army servicemen. Rick just finished another round of schooling in his pursuit to finish prior to going back over to Iraq to serve another term. He is an Army Ranger – an elite group of men that know more about our country than any of us ever should.

Joe and Rick are close in age and both chose pretty crazy careers. You can imagine how their parents feel! Rick was actually finishing up one of his training regimens and was being evaluated by his officers. They asked him about his brother being a professional motocross racer and how he chose a unique career. They then proceeded to tell Rick that he had finished his training and was officially a Ranger. They asked how their mother would feel about having two sons in high risk careers. He said it was her fault because she told us to follow our dreams and get out and see the world.

Well, she can be proud of her boys as Rick has traveled all over the world with his military career and Joe has traveled around as well following his motocross career. You can only imagine the stories that both their jobs bring. Rick served over in Iraq for almost a year and is training again to head over for another term. It’s great that these two have such a close relationship, but it is hard for Joe to think of his brother as Captain Rick!

Rick and his buddies got to witness Joe’s struggle to make the main on Saturday night. He missed transferring out of the heat race due to a crash and a bad start. His LCQ started out about the same and ended up running the same times each lap as about 10 other riders. When you start out in the back, it’s hard to move up with everyone running the same pace.

Here’s hoping that Joe can get the start that he needs this week in St. Louis. He is getting closer and closer to his East Coast roots, so hopefully he will pick up some old tricks again and finally get the monkey off his back.