This week wasn’t as stressful for us, but we still had to ensure that the bike and Joe’s equipment made it past customs alright.  I am happy to say that there were no hang-ups with anything this year – thank goodness!

With the off weekend last week, Joe had planned to get a lot of testing done.  That all fell apart when he got a pretty bad flu bug the Wednesday after.   He spent the next two days in bed sleeping…literally!  I knew he was sick when I asked him what he wanted for dinner and he wanted to sleep instead.  He finally rode on Sunday and was able to sweat out most of the virus.  Sucks that it happened, but he was glad it came on a weekend off.

I went back to work after my time off from maternity leave last weekend as well.  I am the Track Manager for Competitive Edge MX Park in Hesperia , CA .  I had to get back in the swing of things as this coming weekend is our Loretta Lynn Area Qualifier.  Let’s just say that nothing can prepare you for this event!  It is chaos, but my guys do a great job in pulling off an awesome event!

To top that off, I am trying to get things ready for the 5^th Annual MotoBowl presented by Monster on behalf of the Women’s MX/SX Foundation.  For those of you that don’t know much about this event – you are missing out!  We put it on the Thursday before Glen Helen and thanks to AMA that is now in May instead of September.  That means we have to prepare that much faster and the date is creeping up on me way too fast!  We have to get the riders to commit to the event as well as pull in the fans to participate.  It’s a very fulfilling event that we volunteer for and all our proceeds go to the injured riders, mechanics, etc within our sport.  We have been blessed to give away more than $100,000 since we started just 5 years ago!  Amazing what a group of women can do – huh?

Add to that an 18 month old and a newborn and you have a mixture of pure chaos!  To be honest, I wouldn’t trade it for the world!  My life is about this sport and I am all about giving back to it…so let’s get to the racing stuff shall we?

Joe arrived in Toronto only to call me and say that the mapquest directions were horrible and that he had already made three wrong turns.  He wasn’t too happy by the time he finally arrived at the venue, but was able to get his bike work done and make sure things were set up for Saturday.

After he walked the track on Saturday, he called me to say that it was pretty moist and that it was going to rut up fast.  He struggled in practice to find a good rhythm, but was able to get decent lines that he was comfortable with eventually.  He was in the first heat race in 10^th place for a while.  He got passed with about two laps to go.  That’s when Hansen made a not so smart move to take Joe out with a few corners to go.  Joe crashed which led to a few words between him and Hansen.  They spoke later on in the pits and were able to get over it.

Joe went into the LCQ in 6^th and wound up finishing 6^th – his best finish so far this year.  Joe still isn’t happy with his times, but he is improving every week.  It’s hard to use the excuse that he is on way different equipment than everyone else that he races with.  At least he is out there, but as many of you know, that isn’t good enough for the “racer type”!

This week is Dallas for Joe and my qualifier at the track.  I won’t get much sleep this coming week, but thank goodness Grandma and Grandpa will be around to take care of the kids.  I just have to take a deep breath and try to handle all the “mini dads”…see you next week!