Anaheim 1 has come and gone again.  It seems like the build up and anxiety for the season opener overwhelms everyone involved.  There is so much last minute stuff that has to be done by the teams, mechanics, truck drivers and riders.  Most teams show up still finishing bikes and truck graphics.  It’s a hectic week for everyone in different ways.  For the riders, it’s a week filled with lots of questions and pressure.  Did I train enough?  Did I ride enough?  Did I set my bike up right?  These are all questions that you ask yourself.  The pressure comes from different places... You don't want to let your team down, sponsors, parents and mostly yourself.  There are many more races to go but everyone is looking at the first one to see where you stand.

The weather was a huge factor this year.  As in 2005, they were predicting a huge storm to blow into southern California all weekend.  Everyone knew it would be a mess and not an ideal situation.  True to form, Saturday morning we woke up to a rain soaked track.  It had rained pretty hard through the night and left the tarp-covered infield a muddy mess.  Most of the track was dry but the start straight and in between all the jumps was a disaster.  It was really tough to navigate through the ruts and still do the jumps.  Everyone probably had a couple close calls, I know I did.  I just wanted to get through the night and get a decent result.

Practice was pretty mellow. The track was super slow and hard to put laps together.  I only had one decent lap and that put me 20th overall.  I wasn’t thrilled or upset... It was decent but I knew I needed to pick it up when we started racing.  I was in Heat 2, which I was happy with.  I like to watch the other 450 guys ride first and get an idea of how the track is.  It didn’t seem to help me, however, as I rode really badly.  I was right around qualifying position in the first half of the heat and just started going backwards.   I was really tight and couldn’t find a rhythm.  I slowly moved further and further behind.  Needless to say I was not in a good mood back at the truck.  I knew the LCQ was going to be stacked after a lot of pileups put some really fast guys on the ground.  Going to the line for the last chance, I didn’t think I had much of a chance at qualifying.  

I didn’t get a great start but tucked inside in the muddy first turn and came out 5th or 6th.  I struggled to pass a guy on the first lap and lost a lot of time to the leaders.  I finally got going on the 2nd or 3rd lap and could see that I was pretty far back from the top 3 or 4.  I needed a miracle...  and that’s precisely what I got.  Ryan Clark went down on a slippery double and moved me to 4th.  Next was Jake Marsack, who flies in the mud, tipped over in a rutted turn.  Just after he crashed, Antonio Balbi shot over a berm and almost hit me head on.  I could see guys crashing everywhere and was trying to find the leaders to see where I had moved up to.  I finally could see Mike Alessi all alone out front and knew I had moved to 2nd!  I had a lap or 2 to go and Heath Voss was right behind me.  I put my head down and sprinted to the finish.  I got so lucky!  I will take what I can get though, and was excited to have made it.  I rode back to the truck and tried to get ready for 20 more laps.

I knew it would be a long, tricky 20 laps in the main event.  The track had deteriorated pretty badly and you could go down at anytime on any section.  I got a poor start and was just trying to get a good pace going and move forward.  I was battling with some guys early and just wanted to stay out of trouble and be there at the end.  I noticed on about the 6th lap that my clutch was acting really strange.  I knew it wasn’t going to make it... I was doing everything I knew of to try to help it. Adjust it out, adjust it in, not use it,   nothing was working and by the end of the 7th lap it was done.  I barely made it to the mechanics area before it completely quit.  I was pretty upset to dnf the race.  Every point counts in the series and I left some on the table.  The mud took a toll on the bike and it didn’t get much rest after the lcq.  

So Anaheim is in the books now.  I made the main event, which was goal #1.  I know I need to be there every weekend to accomplish my goals for the series.  Phoenix is this weekend and I have to be ready.  The class is deeper than it’s ever been and I need to be better than I've ever been.  Thanks for reading and I hope I have good news for next time!