Hagerstown, Maryland

 Well, another race report and another disappointment it seems like. I am getting kind of bummed out writing these things after every twins national. I don't have the good news of "I finally made the national" yet, but I know my time will come soon. Hagerstown, MD national is a close one for us and I was real excited to race here and in front of alot of my hometown crowd.
 
I went out for the first practice on our "back-up" bike. I wanted to try it first and see how it would run. It didn't handle very good, but dad made some changes and we went back out for the 2nd session. It was a mess. It was standing me up when I got on the gas and it just wasn't doing anything I wanted it to do. The track was real inconsistent. It rained right before practice and the track was ankle grabbing tacky and it was starting to peel off at the top. I switched over to the 750 I have rode most of the year and I dropped a second of my time and I moved up about 10 spots, but I was still going to be on the backrow.
 
I lined up for my heat race and got a pretty descent start. I was up to around 7th or so from the backrow and I got passed by a couple people shifting gears down the back straight-away. I started loosing ground quick trying to get use to the track. I started dropping some good laps and caught back up to the back of the battle in front of me between Varnes, Baer, and Aaron King. I finished right behind them. What a disappointment. I knew what I did wrong as far as line choice, so I was anxious to get the other heats over with so I could try the changes in the semi.
 
I went out for the semi and had a horrible starting spot. I got a crappy start as I bogged the motor too much. I was 11th off the line! Crap. I was determined to do better then my heat race. I passed two guys right off the back and then I started catching up to the lead pack. Everyone was in striking distance and I was running right behind the yamaha of Baer and Nichole Cheza. It was really hard to pass I thought. I would close right up to their real wheel coming in, but I just couldnt find the power down the straight-away. I think with a better start I could of ran up front as I felt a huge improvement. Coming into 3 and 4 on the last lap, I tucked it hard undernearth Baer and Cheza, but just couldn't get the bike juiced up down the straight-away and finished 9th. We were less then a second off a 6th place, and 4 seconds from the leader. We know for gearing where we made a big mistake and we also learned a couple other things with shock springs, exhaust set-up and more. I was super bummed out once again. I thought I would of had a much better night, but believe it or not, Hagerstown is one of my least favorite clay tracks i'd say. It's cool having the event so close to home though. I can't wait to come back next year and try some new things.
 
Billings, Montana is next weekend and back on the 450cc motorcycles. After Billings, we got some other races planned, so I will try and keep you updated. Hopefully with some good reports. It's starting to become crunch time if I want to get ridi of this "A" for next year, so the determination raises at every race. The good news is they annouced some of the cool new changes for our sport for next year. There are some awesome things in the works for next year and I am very excited to start off with a fresh clean slate in 2009 already. I think alot of the new rules will favor Cory Texter and I very excited. But first things first, we have to finish off this year strong and make a national.