Like the title says it's been a long time since I have updated my blog. Alot has happened since I won the 2006 WORCS National Championship in the 51-70 Modified ATV Class. We moved from Marysville Washington to Eatonville Washiongton with the hopes of building a practice track on 5 acres.

I went to the ATVA MX Nationals In March and finished in 2nd place in the 70 production class and 2nd place in the 50 modified class. I did considerably better than last year when I only finished in 5th place for the weekend. This was to be my last race on my trusty 70 as I was getting way to big for it and I was ready for the next level. That's when big red showed up. My mom and dad bought me a red and black mod 90 from back east. I was so excited I couldn't contain myself. I have been riding as much as I can to try to get comfortable with the shifting, braking, and cornering that has to happen all at once. It is quite a bit for my 9 year old brain to get around. I'll get it but it can be very frustrating.

Since I didn't really race any series this year I took the time to try out my soccer legs to keep me in shape. This was my first year playing soccer since the last 4 yrs were spent racing. It was quite a different experience. I didn't expect to run that much. Good exercise though.

Our local winter series started up so I started doing some indoor mx stuff. My local track started offering flat track racing again and I was so excited to give it a try on my new mod 90. I went out and got a great start but went into turn 2 tire to tire with another mod 90, my rear tire hit his rear tire when he got a little loose going into the corner and off the bike I went flying half way down the straight away. The next thing I remeber was what I thought was another quad hit me in the hip. I jumped up only to see it was my bike then I feel back to the ground in pain. All I remember saying to my dad was I'm not going to race any more tonight.

When my dad finally limped me off the track we had a long talk about how I encourage all the younger kids to go back out there and finish what they started. Matter of fact the week before I talked one of my good friends Creo into racing after he took a nasty crash. He didn't want to but I talked it over with him and he decided to go out and give a shot. I knew I had to do the same thing. I told my dad that I would give it 110%. I was pretty sore but I did go out and race and ended up finishing 5th. I was happy with that because it was pretty scary for me to get back on that quad.

So it looks like we are going to give the WORCS series another try again this year. We are going to several track that we have never been to before so I am pretty excited. I love the off-road racing and I can hardly wait to compete against older kids and learn from their experience. It never hurts to see old friends again.

I promise I will do a better job of updating my blog.

Happy Holidays!

The last race of the WORCS series for  2006 was brutal for me.  I had never run in the sand before, so I did not know what to expect.  I was in 1st in one class and tied for 2nd in the other, so this weekend was a pretty big deal. 

Saturady morning came and it was my turn to ride.  The weather was great, it was not too hot, but it wasn't cold either.  I didn't get a great start off the line (remember, I never rode sand before) but after the first full lap, I started to find my line and was feeling pretty good with the track and then my throttle cable busted.  If you can believe it, I pulled into the pit and my dad took off the throttle cover and I pulled the throttle cable by hand and drove through the scoting chute to finish the race.

Sunday was a really foggy morning and a bit on the cold side, but I was ready.  I knew my line from the day before, and I really like riding against Kyle because we push each other so much it makes it fun.  We battled back and forth for the first 3 laps, and then my belt gave out and I had to sit and wait for a tow.

I may not have placed well the last weekend, but I had a great time.  I even got to swim in the ocean and body board a couple days.

For the 2006 WORCS series, I earned a 1st place and a 2nd place finish.  I am really happy about that.

I have not disappeared from the planet. My family moved out of our house in Marysville, WA and we are buying a house in Eatonville, WA. The house is not quite finished yet so we are staying with some very good friends until all is done, but Mom does not have her computer so we are not able to update and respond as good as she wants to.

I am still riding and practicing whenever given the chance. My last race at Pacific Raceways was a bummer. My Dad had to change out the cylinder and then put a new head on, then replace both again, and I still ended up seizing the motor when I went to take off for my 2nd motos. OOh well, I guess I cant have great luck all the time, but I will be back and running better than ever for Pizmo. I am really looking forward to it.

This was by far the toughest race that I have participated in. It took me and my teammates 28 hours to get to Utah for round 8 of the WORCS series. We arrived late Thursday evening with the hopes of practicing Friday. We woke up Friday morning with standing water in the parking lot and the announcement that practice was cancelled due to the rain. We spent all day Friday watching people get towed into their parking areas.

Saturday I woke up with a touch of the stomach flu. My first race was at 8:30am but it was postponed until the end of the day due to a rain shower that came in. I spent the rest of the day playing video games and hanging out with friends. Later that afternoon it was finally my turn to race. I got kind of a bad start but some of the kids in my class went low into a real muddy section and got stuck so I was able to get the hole shot. I made it about 3 more turns then I started getting stuck at every turn. It was so muddy that I could not stay on the top of the ruts. I kept sliding down into the ruts and getting high centered. After a long and greuling 30 minutes I finished in 2nd place.

Sunday I was pretty tired from the race on Saturday and I still wasn`t feeling very good. My dad decided to check out my bike and get it ready to race when he started hearing things in the engine. He pulled the motor apart to find that the motor was destroyed. Well it looked like my day was done. One of our friends offered his sons back up bike to ride in the 70 open class(Thanks Buddy Williams). I went out and did my best but once again it rained and it seemed like I got stuck around every corner. It was so bad that the track workers were using 4 X 4 atv`s to push us out of the mud. When I was finished with the race my dad had to pull my boots out of the nerf bars because they were so full of mud. After some closer inspection the bike I borrowed had broken plastic (from the workers) and a burnt up clutch (soooo much mud). I didn`t do too bad I finished in 2nd again today.

2-2nd places, a broken bike, and the stomach flu......I guess it could have been worse........

Next race Pismo Beach.......cya

This weekend was my second time at Burnt Ridge this year. The first time there was about a foot of mud on the track, so we had to ride on a smaller track. This time, the motocross track was great, but we had an off road section out in the woods that swallowed up a bunch of minis the first time out. I only got 2 laps in in 30 minutes, that is tough since this was a WORCS race and I am used to getting at least 5 ot 6 laps in that amount of time.

I still had a great time and I won both of my motos so that was really great.

I got to race in the youth team race again and this time my team mate was Creo Kostilecky. Creo is 5 and rides a Kasea 70cc, just like mine. We raced his bike this weekend, just to "see what it could do" and once I got used to it I think it was cool. Our race was just around the motocross track and we competed against 5 teams, and we came in 2nd. We might have had 1st place but I got stuck in the scoring chute !!!! OOppps

This weekend was my first race in almost 1 month. My family is moving so we had a lot of packing and things to do to get ready to sell our house. But I am back now and it feels GREAT!!!!!

We only had to drive about 1 hour to get to Hannegan Speedway so we left Friday and just had fun hanging out with my friends that I have not seen for awhile. Saturday morning we woke up and it was overcast skies and really muggy (73% humidity on Friday night). We started practice about 10am and I could not wait. The track is fast -it has doubles, tabletops, a 15` step up and some AWESOME corners for power sliding.

I talked to my Dad before practice and we decided that I was going to race up this weekend because the track is exactly what I like. I rode the 90cc A class and the 70 cc Open class. If you are not familiar with the A class, it means that I jump all jumps and clear most doubles. I decided that this is a track where I wanted to push myself with speed and jumping at the same time. I was having a great time riding, and then decided to crash on a back corner and bruise myself all up. There was a flagger running to help someone else, so by the time he got back to me I had already rolled my quad off the top of me and he just saw me putting the kill cord back in and fire it up and go. After I came off the track my Dad asked my why I was gone for so long and I did not know it but they had not seen anything that happened because this is a section where you are out of sight. I kept on riding for awhile and then at intermission we went to the lake to cool off and have some fun.

Sunday was a HOT one. Early in the morning I was hanging around and my friend Reed came over and we were talking about the woops. He took me out and we walked the track together and he reminded me how to skim the woops on my mini. I am lucky to have friends like Reed Petchnik, Jeremy Johnson and Cole Fite. They are always giving me pointers and telling me what a great job I am doing. I ran 2 classes on Sunday as usual, and took 1st place in the 70cc Open class with a pretty huge lead, and challenged myself with the 90cc A class and walked away with a 3rd place finish. It might have been hot, but it was a COOL track and a really great weekend.

This was an awesome weekend. My Dad got old and my bike was blazing. We got to the ORV park on Friday afternoon. Horn Rapids is a place that has 300 acres and something like 5 tracks. I have never been to an ORV park before so it was a little strange to see people riding around. My only experience has been on a racetrack and at most of the tracks there is only limited pit riding.
I got used to it real fast though and now I can`t wait to go back. I want to try the sand drag strip.

Saturday was practice on the mx track and it was a hot one. Since it was so hot, there were not a lot of people out there practicing so we were able to ride for a long time. The track was pretty fast with a couple of doubles that I knew I wanted to master by the end of the weekend. I also liked the sweepers that they had on the mx track. There were a couple of sweepers that went right up to a tabletop and then a double.

Sunday was race day. Right off I went out to practice and my bike popped and then died. I thought for sure that it was the cylinder again. Dad took it apart and found that all it was was a belt so he fixed it up and I was off and running. I rode real hard in all 4 motos and I was able to come home with 2 1st place awards. Thanks Dad for keeping me running. I Love You.

This was an awesome weekend. On Saturday we practiced all day. The track was great. Pacific Raceways has a lot of jumps, both doubles and tabletops. There were a couple of minor changes since the last time I raced there, but nothing that I could not handle. In fact, the opposite is true. The changes made the track even more smooth for me. I was able to catch some major air, even my Dad was impressed. The day rounded out with a team race. On my 70cc, we raced against a couple of CR 85`s and some other 70cc/90cc bikes. I rode with an awesome rider named Ellis, he rode his 90cc and I rode my 70cc. I got one lap in on my 70cc then it died and we could not get it started. I finished out the race on Ellis` 90cc bike. I would like to take just a minute to say Thank You to all our friends at the track (you know who you are). Our friends worked until real late at night working on my bike, and actually could not figure it out. They decided to sleep on it and start again in the morning. Sunday morning my Dad and a couple friends got up early and started tearing things apart even more. Final result was that the piston was shot, but they put on a stock one and I was ready to rock with about 15 minutes till race time. I feel very lucky to have such good people around us at the track. I rode my 70cc to 2 1st place victories. My bike was running better than ever.

Sunday morning was a little overcast but the track was great. My bike

I was looking forward to Washougal a lot. People said lots of great stuff about the track and it was really cool because quads usually do not get to ride there. Our schedule was a little different since we did not have practice on Friday, but they squeezed it in on Saturday morning and then we were off. Well, maybe not off. Because it rained so much, it was too muddy for the mini quads to go out on the track so they sent all the big riders out and rescheduled us until the afternoon.
The first ride of the day for me was the Team Race with my partner Nate. We rode my quad this time and finished 1st. It was a really great ride, we worked together real well. I hope that this shows my Dad that he really did built me a pretty great bike.
When it finally came time to ride, it was muddy and slick. I really enjoyed the track and I think the best part was Horsepower Hill. Horsepower hill is about 50 yards long with a step up about half way up, it was great. Because it was so slick, I was able to practice my power slides on a couple of corners. There was one corner where people were cheering me on when I slid in that corner, it was cool.
Sunday I rode the Open class all the way to victory. It was really fun that morning and I feel like I got some pretty good practice in. The track at Washougal was dirt (mud) and grass so there were different skills to practice. I finished 13 laps on Sunday and I was real tired when I got home.
I had a great time at Washougal and I want to Thank my Dad for building me a great bike and getting me to all these races. I Love You Dad !!!

After we left Payette, my family and I went to Missoula for the week. We were there during some record breaking temps so it was really hot. We stayed in a little cabin at a place called Jellystone Park. The pool was not open yet, but we got to play miniature golf a few times, ride bikes, play in the park and get wet with the hose and water balloons.

On the 19th we headed to Anaconda, MT for the Joe Byrd riding school. I had to finish my homework in the truck to make sure that it got done because we knew it was going to be a long weekend and I would not have the time or energy to do it later. We had to be ready for Joe at 9am on Saturday. The first thing we taked about was bike setup ie: Castor, Camber, Tow In and Ride height. Joe showed us all how to measure these things and what can happen if the bike is not set up correctly. Joe talked about how important it is to eat right and drink enough all the time to be at the top of your game when the race rolls around.

We were able to ride around the track a few times and get comfortable before we took an individual timed lap. We worked on so many things during the first day that it was amazing. At the end of the day, we had to run around the track 1 time, bike around the track 2 times then ride our quad 5 times. This was the toughest thing that I have ever done, but I did it without cutting corners or avoiding hills. On Sunday, we worked on starts, cornering and jumps. One of the last things of the day we did was take another individual lap. Then we played ATV soccer, and my team won. After a quick break, we met at Joe`s trailer and found out what our lap times were from both days. I was proud of myself because I increased my lap time by 6 seconds.

I really learned a lot from the school and I can`t wait to get out on the track and use what I have learned. Washougal here I come.