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Hey everybody, I just got back from Lake Whitney a couple of days ago. Here’s a run down of the week...
Whitney was full of surprises for me from the moment we left my house until the very last day we were there. I was really cutting it close getting packed to head down there as I didn’t even start to pack up until the day before we left. I don’t know what I would have done if I hadn’t gotten Friday off of work. I had been so busy with my work and training that I didn’t have even a spare minute to try to pack any of my stuff. After we had left on Saturday morning I finally realized that if I hadn’t gotten Friday off, I would never had enough time to pack up and get there on time.
Unfortunately, my whole family couldn’t go; my Dad had to stay home to work, and my brothers and sisters had to stay as well to help him. So my Mom, baby sister, and I left on Saturday morning at about 6 o’clock. It took about twenty-two hours to get from our house to the track, but fortunately the trip was relatively smooth. I was wondering what the scenery would be like in Texas the whole way there, because every state we went through was different. I was surprised to see that it was almost exactly like back here in Maryland, except for some mean looking ground cacti that seem to be their version of thistles or dandelions or something.
We did get a little glimpse of the more desert like part of Texas just a couple of hundred feet before we went through the gates of WB Ranch Sunday evening. All of the sudden, the road turned to dirt and there where low shrubs on both sides of the road. The ground was bare, hard, and clayish looking, except for those little cacti dotting it. I thought, alright, now we’re in Texas. It was only a glimpse though, because as soon as we drove onto the ranch the landscape changed to grasslands with trees and shrubs. There was a wrought iron sign on the side of the road telling us to go slow and watch out for exotic animals.
The first animal we saw was a regular old doe, and we were laughing that this might be one of those “exotic” animals the sign just told us about. We have deer all over the place back home, there are tons of them even on just our piece of property. Come to find out they do have exotic animals. There are some African red deer on the ranch as well as zebras, antelope, gazelles, and maybe a few others.
The weather was also a little bit of a surprise. When we got there on Sunday, it was about 80 degrees and sunny. I was sweating like a pig because I was used to temperatures in the mid to upper thirties. Monday was practice day, and the temperature had dropped to the mid 60’s because clouds had rolled in. Little did I know that that was the last time that I would see the sun until I got home on Monday.
Never before have I ridden on such a loamy track. I felt like crap in my first practice because it seemed like I wasn’t going anywhere; the track was just eating up all of my bike’s horsepower. They really dig that track up; there must be at least a foot and a half of loam. It feels like riding in silky smooth mud that doesn’t stick to your bike. The soil is mostly clay, but it seems to have sand in it also, because it drains water quickly, and also stays pretty loose. My second practice was much better, but I still wasn’t up to speed because I was really fighting my suspension. That’s a sponsorship that I’m really going to go after now that I’m back home.
I wanted to ask Malcolm (Stewart) why he pulled in behind me in that practice and would pass me, and then slow down and let me by again, and then pass me again. He must have done that three of four times in that practice, which I thought was strange, because I’m no big name or his competition or anything. If I wasn’t fighting my suspension so much, I might have had a little more for him. I could hardly pick the rut that I wanted because the bike was in the air half of the time! Soft didn’t even describe what my suspension was, and I was getting the tar beat out of me. When I got back to my pit, I felt like I had been hit by a car, and I was really frustrated because I didn’t think that I would be able to stiffen it up enough. I cranked the clickers almost all of the way in, and it actually worked surprisingly well.
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My first moto, 250 A Pro-sport, was the very last moto on Tuesday, and the track was as rough as it was going to be. I got a sixth place start from the out side and as soon as my tire hit the dirt off of the concrete pad, I almost stopped breathing and had a death grip on my handlebars. Right away I noticed and started forcing myself to breath, but I didn’t notice my death grip, and halfway through the moto my arms were dead so that I could hardly hold onto the bike. I did the best I could, and finished the moto in eighth. My terrible form didn’t help either; I was leaning back most of the time instead of over the bars.
I was thinking that Seiji would tell me that I rode like a turd, but he really surprised me by saying that I rode really well. I guess he didn’t think that I’d do very well because I’m riding a stock bike in a really stacked class. That meant a lot to me to hear him tell me that I rode well, and it gave me some extra confidence. My biggest goal for the week was to prove myself to him. To prove that I am worth working with, and that I’m not crazy to think that I can accomplish my goals.
My next moto was the 250 A class on Wednesday, with pretty much the exact same lineup as the Pro-sport class. It was a mud moto as it had rained all of Tuesday, but the track crew did a great job and it wasn’t that bad. On the gate I noticed that my sub-frame was loose, and being my own mechanic I have no one else to blame! My Mom held my bike and the gate for me, and I ran back to my pit, grabbed a hex key wrench, and raced back... It was the wrong one, and as I sat there on my bike wondering what to do, the gate dropped and everybody but me tore off for the first turn. At that point I was thinking, ‘I should just quit and go back to my pit’. I looked back at my Mom and she was screaming “go! go! go!” so I put the bike in gear and took off! By that time everyone was already in the second corner. I rode hard and stayed off of the ground, unlike a lot of other riders, and amazingly got up to tenth, where I finished.
Shortly after my moto it started raining again, and the temperatures were in the upper thirty’s. The locals where going nuts, complaining about how cold it was, and I saw a couple of them bundled up enough to go on an artic expedition! I was staying in a tent up until that day, and my Mom was sleeping in the car with my sister. The tent started leaking when the wind really started blowing, and I was planning on cramming in the vehicle with them to save myself from the cold wet tent.
We were so lucky to have pitted next to the track owners, Allen and Jamie, and their son, Alex. Alex is a really cool kid, and the whole week he was taking me around an introducing me to a bunch of industry people. That night they had gone over to eat at the neighboring ranch, which is called Buffalo Ridge Ranch. They were talking to the ranch owners and our situation came up. All of their cabins on the ranch were already booked, but they decided to let us stay in a bunkhouse that they use for summer camps.
So I didn’t end up having to squeeze into the vehicle with my Mom, and we slept in a warm dry bed for the first time since we left home. I really have to thank Larry and Carrie, the ranch owners for their hospitality. I can’t say thank you enough. We ate dinner at the ranch Friday night, but unfortunately they didn’t have the 48 oz steak that I really wanted. I did try fried pickles though, and they were really good. I also had a real quesadilla and it’s nothing like the Taco Bell version.
Saturday morning I did a short, easy run just to keep my metabolism fired-up since I wasn’t riding, and as I was running along the ranch driveway, which is about a mile and a half long, I started wondering if lions were included in the list of exotic animals. I’d hate to have to kill a beautiful lion with my bare hands! Lol! I seriously doubt that they did, but hey, who knows?
Sunday was the most important day of the week, everything was hinging on the second set of motos. I was coming in with two top ten finishes, and I always seem to do better as the week goes on. I had a terrible day. In my first moto of the day, the second moto of 250 A Pro-sport, I got a bad start, rode really well, and battled my way up from mid twentieth to twelfth. The last lap I was thinking, ‘alright Daniel, just stay up and ride smart, and you’ll be just fine’. No sooner than I thought it, my front wheel washed out coming into a corner, and a group of riders that I had just put behind me got me back.
I ended up finishing the moto in seventeenth. I was so bummed. If I had finished in twelfth, I would have most certainly gotten a top ten overall. I ended up thirteenth overall. Remembering that I could still finish top ten in my other class, I tried to keep my spirits up. The second moto of 250 A was even worse. I didn’t even finish the first lap. Coming back down off of St. Whitney, my front wheel tucked and sent me over the bars. It happened so quick that I don’t really know what happened. When I got up my handle bars had been twisted down to my gas tank. I tried to pull them back up, but I couldn’t, so I had to pull off the track. The crash must have been a hard one, because it bent my sub-frame, twisted my bars all of the way down, smashed my radiator in a bit, and bent the radiator brace mount.
So that was the note that I left Lake Whitney on. I was really wishing that I could go to Oak Hill to redeem myself, but I had to get back home to work. I had a great time though, and I have to thank the people who made it possible,
www.coachseiji.com (Coach Seiji),
Racer X Virtual Trainer, Twigg Cycles, Nineonenine Designs, Fly, Scott USA, SPFC, and Jordan’s Flooring. I also want to thank the McWilliams, Larry and Carrie, Andy, and everyone else that helped me out so much. And a huge thanks to
Vurbmoto for naming me their rder of the day. Thanks guys, that is quite an honor! Until next time...
