I am sitting on the couch of the owners of Redux Beverages somewhere in the hills of San Diego County. I started on a little Arizona-to-California adventure yesterday morning at 4:00 AM from my house in Phoenix that culminated with a round of golf and dinner at our primary. I made the five hour drive to the motocross mecca of Corona as the doors swung open at Dubach Racing Development. After dropping off some exhausted exhausts and picking up some fresh ones, I stopped in at MB1 Suspension to do the same thing with my forks and shocks. At the end of the outdoor season, the team had 13 motorcycles strung out between New York (home of Bob Kiniry) and California. When the race was over at Steel City, the task of piecing 13 bikes back together and selling them began. Since the sale of those bikes factors into our race team budget, the quicker I can sell them off the better. So instead of shipping everything out, I decided to combine a trip of dropping things off with some meetings and also a doctor's appointment with the world famous Dr. Steve Navarro to get my body back on track after a long and taxing season.

Looking back on the year, it was a pretty rough one for me. It had a few bright spots, like my rides at Las Vegas Supercross and Mt. Morris, and several low points, like injuring my foot at Mt. Morris and the spectacular crashes at Indianapolis and Steel City. But all in all, I have to say I am very disappointed with my results. I came into the year with high expectations, but everything slowly came apart and I never managed to get back on track. But the season is over, and I have some time to heal up, regroup and come back in 2009 more prepared. I plan on doing just that.

Despite my personal disappointments, Team Solitaire had its best season ever. Bob Kiniry scored us our first podium finish at San Diego, and we had great results throughout the season with Bob, Kyle Partridge and Ryan Grantom. On top of that, working with our new primary sponsor, Brawndo: The Thirst Mutilator, has been so much fun and really allowed me to be creative and unique in our approach. We have renewed our deal for 2009, and we are tooling up to create an even more fun and competitive program.

So, just as always, you can read my rants here at the new site, and you can keep up with my schedule and race reports at www.teamsolitaire.com.

All the best,

Ryan

My son started pre-school on Monday, and my wife and I were really sad not to have him around for five mornings a week. He, on the other hand was excited as could be at the idea of going somewhere with a lots of kids, a train table, a sand box, and an endless array of books. He waved goodbye to us and thus began the next 20 or so years of his life spent in a classroom. 

If you're looking for something on the old Solitaire blog, never fear -- you can still read all of my old posts at teamsolitaire.blogspot.com.