Sedalia, MO

After a short week from the previous hot shoe national in Quincy, Illinois we loaded the truck back up and made the trip to Lamonte, Missouri which is right near Sedalia. This trip was pretty cool because my Grandpa Fitzcharles made the trip out with us and this would be as far west as he has ever been so that was pretty cool. Of course, we had my dad, our driver/mechanic Rich and my mechanic Weasel along with. Oh and of course Shayna. We got out there a day early and watched the car racing at the track we would be racing on the following day. Kinda boring, but something to do.
 
Anyway, we went out for practice and I felt pretty good right from the start. A few gearing changes on both motorcycles. The 450 seemed pretty good and the Lancaster Harley-Davidson/Screamin Eagle/Syn 3 XR 750 was pretty solid as well. I finished a close 2nd in both my scratch heats, behind Sammy Halbert on the 450 and Jake Mataya on the 750. It wasn't easy as I could hear Jared Mees behind me the whole way so I knew I had to pick it up a little more.
 
Lined up for both of my heat races in the 3rd spot. First up was the 450 heat race. I didn't get the best start, but I ran around the outside and passed Coolbeth and Mataya to take the lead. I led for most of the race, but I could hear Coolbeth and what I found out to be Schnabel in tow. On lap 9, Coolbeth showed me a wheel on the inside of one, and I was a little too determined not to let him pass me as I ran it a little too deep and went off the edge of the racing line. At the same time, he hit a hole and bumped into me a little bit which allowed Schnabel to pass us both and I ended up 3rd in my heat race after this battle. My 750 heat race was less eventful. I got a crummy start as I was wheeling off the line all day. I was in a battle of 5 riders with Russell, Carr, Halbert and Schnabel in front of me. We finished nose to tail and I brought up the caboose of the lead riders and finished 5th, but I was feeling pretty good on it if I could get a good start.
 
I started on the inside front row in the final for the 450. I got the holeshot, but I was way low off the racing line and I shuffled into 4th coming off turn 2. Schnabel quicked poked it by me and I was in 5th. I was determined to put together a smooth and smart racing after making so many mistakes the previous week. I rode by myself in 5th for a while as the pack behind me was fading pack and I was fading from the first four of Mees, Carr, Halbert and Schnabel. With about 4 to go, I started to reel in Schnabel quite a bit and Halbert as well. I finished 4th about 2 bike lengths behind Schnabel and about 6 more from a podium. I was bummed because the race was supposed to be 20 laps and they only gave us 12. In the 750 main event, I was in the middle of the back row. I had a descent start and was running like 8th or so, right in tow with the pack and I lost my brakes around lap 3. I muscled it around as good as I could, but this track was so fast and it was hard to enough to stay on the track WITH brakes, let alone without any. About halfway, my steel shoe fell off and that pretty much summed up my race as I called it a race. I was really bummed out. I set a goal for myself and I came up a little short, but we found out the problem that caused the brake problem and I found my steel shoe on the back straightaway after the race. 
 
It was a pretty descent day except for the troubles in the last main event. We learned quite a bit and can hopefully improve on that as we head into next weekend. Thanks to Dave Cory for all the hard work on this race and man is it good to hear Donny Bargmann announcing again!