Red Bud

As I sit here on a plane back home to Cali words can not describe what kind of emotional roller coaster of a weekend this had been for me, my wife, family and friends. On Saturday in the first practice I was just getting the feel for the track and felt just like I always do, then the green flag came out so I thought even though there were a few jumps that I had not done I would still be able to put a decent lap in. I came up to LaRocco’s leap and decided to scrub it and just go for the double, well that’s where it all went wrong, as I came up the face my toe caught the lip and ripped my foot of throwing me off the side of the bike. So as I’m flying through the air partially on my bike I auger into the third with my head and shoulder, as soon as I hit I new that I had dislocated my shoulder. I got off to the side and immediately needed Doc Bodner there to put it back in, knowing that the quicker it got put back in the less damage I would have. After them tugging and pulling for a moment it went back in relatively easy, so off to the Asterisk rig to get iced down and stitched up. Then we headed back to the hotel for some food and sleep. Sunday morning I woke up feeling a lot better and felt that I could tough out practice and get just a decent time in so I had an ok pick. My first plan was to only go out for one practice and sit out the other, but I wasn’t happy with my time and decided to go out for the second one as well. I did end up bettering my time by a little bit but on the last lap on landed awkward into a corner and my should popped out again, so I ride to the top of the berm drop my bike and sit there again in pain waiting for Doc to come over to pop it back in. So again a tug and a pull and it was back in place, we get back to the Asterisk rig AGAIN and am told they can give me some good pain meds but would not be able to race if I had taken them. I held off and thought that I could still tough it out if my shoulder was taped well enough. At the last minute I made my decision to ride and to get taped up.


As I’m sitting on the line just thinking if I get even just a point it would be worth it. 3 laps in I’m sitting 18th when I caught a banner in my back wheel which locked up my bike, so I get off and start tugging and pulling and finally just got on the bike started it and put my head down. Now that I am dead last I didn’t know whether or not to just pack it in and wait for Moto 2, I went for it for the rest of the Moto going from last to 20 with only about a half a lap to spare. Let me tell you something I would have been one pissed off person if I had gotten 21st with how much pain I was in.


Now Moto 2 is up and it only seemed like we had 30 minutes in between but I was still going to tough it out for just some points. I didn’t get the greatest of starts but was around 19th or so at the beginning of the Moto. I just got into a decent pace that I felt would get me further ahead and tried maintaining that until the end. With about 5 or 6 laps to go I came into a rough sandy corner and my shoulder started to slip out a bit and I nearly went down, after that happened I backed it down and settled for 11th which I felt was good enough considering what all had happened. When I got back to the truck I didn’t know if I should have been happy or what but I was in a lot of pain. Back into the medical rig I went for some ice and some strong pain meds.


The weekend as a whole didn’t turn out as planned but that’s the thing with racing, never will that really happen , at least not exactly. I have to thank not only my family, friends, Team and fans but I need to also thanks Doc Bodner and Eddie Casillas for getting me ready to get back out to go racing, I know they were strongly against me riding with how bad of shape my shoulder was. At the end of the day we are all there to do a job and I felt that if I just went out there and rode that I could at least get somewhat of a job done even with a bum shoulder. Oh and never again do I want to hear anyone question the amount of heart that any of us go through on a weekly basis, it does not matter what things anyone rides through, whether its injury or whatever the other case may be but we all have made sacrifices to get to where we are now and if it were not for the heart and desire we all have to be out there racing with the best in the world we would have never gotten to this point. Again thanks to all who were supportive and even the ones who weren’t because I know at the end of the day you have my best interest in mind.


SH 105