Neeses, SC * 03/07/09

With a $5,000 purse up for grabs I couldn’t afford not to come race this awesome little short track in South Carolina.

My Daytona set-up did not feel very good at all on this track so I was still trying to get comfortable when practice ended. I made a couple changes before my first heat race and was being led around by local Garth Brow and was chasing Aussie Luke Gough when all of a sudden down the front straight away my motor locked up. It sounded like the chain may have fallen off, but as soon as I saw it wasn’t the chain, I knew that it wouldn’t be pretty inside my engine.

Since we had already taken my stock Yamaha 09 engine out of my frame and given it to my engine builder, I was without a bike to finish the night. Matt Weidman and family stepped up and pulled Matt’s practice bike out of their truck for me to race.

The next heat race was for the big money class, I got a decent start from the bottom of the track, Jason Griffin had the holeshot so I just had to roll around him and then I entered turn three really hot on a bike I hadn’t ridden before, for a brief second I was worried whether it would stick or not but it was no problem at all. The bike was working really well, especially for a Honda! I was able to win the heat race and set the pole for the $1000 to win main event.

In the other class Chris Carr and I had to go thru a semi to make the third row of the final, I lined up next to him, beat him off the line and pulled down in front of him to the bottom of the track and started working my way forward until I got stuck behind someone on a framer. Carr was able to get by me and then I followed him past said rider and we were slowly catching the next pack of riders until I just blew it into turn three. I just didn’t get the bike sideways to scrub speed and so I blew the groove and went to the top of the track losing touch with Chris. I was only able to manage 7th place at the finish.

Now the big money class I picked the outside pole, and picked the very bottom of the groove so that all the other riders started on the loose dirt to the inside. I pulled a monster holeshot with a nice wheelie only to be red-flagged, so on the restart a couple guys to the inside jumped the line and had a wheel ahead of me at first but that didn’t last long as I was too hooked up and had the lead going into turn one.

Thru turns 3 and 4 I was just above the smooth line and the bike was bucking and bouncing all over, it took me two laps to smooth out and find the fast line around the bottom. I was still struggling to find a smooth line on the other end of the track and I could hear someone was all over me. Pearson ended up passing me around the halfway point on the end I was struggling with so I thought I gave it away, then he got in the rough stuff and I was able to sneak back by on the inside and was trying my hardest to hold him off and hold the low line but I still couldn’t get thru turns one and two clean so he was able to get back by me on that end on the last lap, so I followed him close thru the final turns and picked up the throttle really early, pulled to the inside and made it a race to the checkers… but I came up a few feet short in second place.

Thanks to Matt Weidman and family if it wasn’t for them I wouldn’t have even been able to race.