I prepare for a national by spending countless hours on the bike fine-tuning my skills and endurance. Some days I work on specific things like jumping, corner speed, being smooth, or sprints. But most days are spent doing long motos on my course or at sand tracks. The rougher and tougher the track the better, as I like to challenge myself. Usually on courses that are five minutes or shorter, I do one-hour motos and on the longer ones I go an hour and a half. I keep track of lap times and try to maintain or go faster as the practice goes on and sprint on the last lap imitating a last lap charge at a race. I normally like to ride a minimum of three days a week to stay feeling crisp. Cardiovascular workouts are a big part of my program as well. Usually three days a week are spent on cardio machines or a bicycle, with interval training one day and aerobic conditioning the other two. Two days are spent on the weights: light weights with 20 reps and 3 sets.

The race I've been getting ready for is the Payette round of the WORCS series. This is a good high-speed track with sand and hardpack mix. My start was around 15th, as it was a long sandy uphill and most 250s get swallowed in those situations. I worked my way to seventh by the time we entered the offroad section following my teammate Destry Abbott. I got Destry before we got back around to the MX track and was really pushing hard to get into position for the long haul of the two hour race. As we entered the second lap of the off-road section, I passed Russ Pearson on a long highspeed downhill. Things were looking good. The second place rider fell shortly after moving me into fourth and the battle for third was on.

Kiedrowski was in third at the time as we headed into a dry creek bed. Even though there was no running water, the creek bottom was muddy and slick with ruts. I felt fast from the first lap through it so I was hoping to make a pass there. Exiting one of the corners my front end slid and caught causing me to oversteer and run directly into the side of the bank with a glancing blow off my elbow and hip. Hitting the bank helped to straighten me out and pursue Kiedrowski without losing much time at all. Hitting my elbow would be detrimental as you will soon read. We headed out of the wash tire-to-tire and up the following hill to a tight left hand turn and back down. As we turned the corner I knew this was my chance ( I'm usually fast coming down). I pinned it and started shifting up way to the right and just past two thirds down the hill was safely into third.

Casseli was in second at the time and right in front of me going into the muddiest part of the track, an uphill gulles full of whoops. I came in fast and hit most of the bumps good and only bogged for a moment through the mud. Nearing the end, Casseli went right out of the bumps as I went for the straight line. I made the pass before the corner. As we turned left and headed up a short hill I knew it would be tough to hold him off as he had a better drive. Sure enough, Kurt got me back near the top, but I bounced right back to get him on the fast fire road just ahead. Finally, I got past all those thumpers and into a solid second. Now it was time to concentrate on being smooth and trying to track down the leader.

My run in second place was short lived, as nearing the end of the third lap, I was having a hard time holding on with my left hand. My glove was bunching up and my pinky and ring finger were tingling. I had felt that before, actually the Sunday before while practicing near the end of my moto. I slowed down for the next lap hoping my grip would return and I could get back in the mix. I fell back to sixth and began riding way over the front of the machine to take the load off my hands. Nothing seemed to work. About that time I began hearing and feeling a clunk coming from the rear. Thinking something was coming off, I stopped in the pits and had my team check a couple of bolts. Everything was tight and I continued on my way.

During that lap, I lost control in another wash and fell into a bank. This is when I realized that my hand had gone completely numb and decided it was best to pull off and check things out. After pulling my glove off, I could see a problem: my hand was pretty much white and cold as I had lost circulation. I knew I could not continue safely. Right then I knew the slim chance I had to catch back up in the championship was lost and felt pretty alone sitting on top of that hill. For my safety, it was the right thing to do, but as a racer it was the hardest thing to do. It took about thirty minutes for my hand to come back to form and two hours total to regain a normal color replacement after squeezing it. Strange things.