Springfield, Illinois
 
After a long rainy weekend in Springfield, Illinois we only managed to race one of the two races scheduled for memorial day weekend. They had an amateur race scheduled on friday night and that rained out. The next day was the national for us on the TT and I was really excited. We got to the track a day earlier and I went and checked out the track. It looked awesome. I was really excited but a little nervous in a way because I never really ran against the big boys on a TT like this before so I didn't know how my speed would stack up to theirs. I knew I could turn some good laps, so I was ready to get on the track.
 
Went out for the first practice and the jump was crazy. It wasn't the fact that we were jumping 90ft out of it, but the fact that we were dropping 25-30ft out of the sky doing it. With our dirttrack bikes, it made for some rough landings. I wasn't too fast off the jump in this first session but still managed to qualify 17th. The fixed the jump up, however I continued to struggle in qualifying and finished 30th. I haven't quite figured out how to qualify yet. I think it helps to have someone fast in front of you pushing you, but I just couldn't find a good qualifying partner in my group. I felt really good however and I was ready for the night show.
 
Lined up in my first heat with Lewis, Russell, Halbert, King, Coolbeth, Schnabel, etc. I was on the back row and I got a pretty nice holeshot. I was probably up to 4th or 5th going into turn one, but I got pushed way wide and come off the jump in like 9th or 10th. Passed a couple guys and started to reel in some of the guys in front of me and felt really awesome, but only finished 7th, but good enough for a front row in the semi.
 
Before the semi I was really confident I could get the job done. I felt awesome and I felt there was no reason I shouldn't be in this final tonight. In my semi I lined up with Lewis, Cummings, Stanley, Eslick, Varnes, Mataya, and a couple others. I pulled a good holeshot but I went into turn one and hit the only hole on the track and got squirrly before the jump and Stanley and Lewis passed me. They had a little gap on me at first, but I really started to reel them in fast lap after lap. I caught up to my good buddy John Lewis's backtire with 3 or so laps to go and he was all over Stanley. John and I ride together alot, so it felt just like another day at the practice track, except with a guy in front of us. They were taking two from the semi to the final and for the first time at a national, I felt 100% confident even sitting in 3rd with 3 left. I was waiting for John to put a move on the leader, and if it didn't come on this lap I was gonna try and out break them both into the long corner before the jump. Coming out before the last kicker jump, I went underneath John and he tucked his front end right in front of me. It happened so fast, I had no time to react and I ran into him and his bike. I went to pull the clutch in to save it and I pulled the hotstart lever instead and stalled my bike. I remained in 2nd place and I kicked and kicked to get re-started but eventually got passed and sat there watching the rest of the semi and John layed motionless in the ground. Bad call by the AMA for not red-flagging the race as John was knocked out in the middle of the track and they continued to race inches from his body. If they would of red flagged it like the should of, I would of been put in 2nd place and in the main event. I guess you can call it racing or whatever, but I wasn't real happy about the whole thing. Good thing was John was ok, but we watched the final together from the grandstands. A huge bummer as I thought for sure I could of ran a top 10 pace for sure a whole night, but just had some more bad luck thrown our way. I guess it's just not my time yet.
 
The Springfield Mile was rained out on Sunday and the re-scheduled race on Monday. Vernon Downs is next weekend in New York. I am excited for the event, but yet I haven't hardly ran any cushion track so I think its going to be a little bit of a learning experience. I love the cushion but im just not quite sure where I stack up against the best yet, so we'll see. I just can't wait to race again! Thanks to everyone for rooting for me all year and I feel a little ashamed I let alot of people down, but there are alot more races this year and ill continue to work hard to get ready for all of them one race at a time!