This weekend was the start of the 2nd half of my season. It goes into full steam after this weekend with not another weekend off until mid November. This weekend was round #6 of the US Desert Racing Series. I am leading the points and want to continue to keep leading the points and get as many wins as possible. Saturday morning my Dad and I headed out to the desert for Saturdays practice. The practice went well and the new technical section they added to the Expert course looked really fun. It gave the course a little break of holding wide open and got to use the more technical part of our riding abilities. I got 3 laps in and figured I was pretty well ready for the race tomorrow. My Dad and I went home to get the bike ready and to also get my Endurocross bike ready for next weekend.

I woke up early Sunday morning and headed out to the race to watch some friends in the 9:00am race. It was fun to watch some friends getting back into racing and having as much fun as I have. I knew today was going to be tough because Russ Pearson had showed up and he is the National Hare and Hound Champion from last year. I had a bit of an advantage because I was starting 3rd and he was starting 7th. I felt ready for the challenge though because it would be a good test to my speed against the best there is. I showed up to the start and was ready for battle. I took off 3rd behind Dylan Murdock and Ryan Kudla. I was pushing hard the first lap because I knew Russ was going to be coming fast. I caught Kudla about halfway threw the first lap but it was really dusty. Through the new technical section I knew I had to make my move. I pushed it off the trail through the rocks and made my pass. I was happy to already be ahead of him so I didn’t have to eat his dust. The following lap I caught Murdock and followed him for about 8 miles and made the pass on him going up a steep uphill. He had realized I already caught one minute on him and made the pass easy for me. Thanks Dylan!!! Now I had clean air, (minus the lappers dust which was really bad), and had to keep the pace going. On the 4th lap is when I was going to make my pit. As I was coming into the pits I smacked my shifter on a rock. I didn’t think much of it but when I went to shift down nothing happened. Oh no I thought I bent my shift lever. It wasn’t bent but it still wasn’t engaging. Luckily I was stuck in a high gear, I believe it was 4th. I had a 3-minute lead at this point over Russ Pearson but I knew that wasn’t much with his speed. I tried to push as hard as I could but it was really tough considering I was stuck in one gear for every section. The bike was not fast enough in some sections and too tall in the technical stuff. I stalled it once and it started right back up. I managed to limp in to the finish with a 50 second lead over Russ Pearson. Followed by 3 minutes over Dylan Murdock. The finishing order was Nick Burson, Russ Pearson and Dylan Murdock. This was a very good day for me. I accomplished both of my goals by winning the race and extending my points lead. My next race is the Colorado Endurocross next weekend. I want to say thanks to Paul Ondas from FMF for coming out to the race and helping me with some fresh pipes for the upcoming races.