As I rounded the corner before the table top, I could hear Nick's bike roaring up the inside, I railed the outside rut and sent the tabletop in 3rd gear, Nick´s handlebars inches from mine while we flew through the air, side by side. We land, Nick slightly ahead of me, I take the inside, and nicely block pass Nick. I power out of the corner and into the whoops in 3rd gear wide open, my tire misses a whoop about half way through and dips into the trough of the next one, I feel my body weight shift up and forward, I go over the handlebars, and everything goes black.
I awake to the sound of revving dirt bike engines and the smell of country air mixed with race gas and two stroke oil. I get out of my fold down bed in the back of my van and get dressed. While brushing my teeth I watch the track crew doing maintenance on the Motocross track, fixing the ruts from the previous days races, and trying to get the track moderately rideable due to the immense amount of rain that fell the night before. I think to myself, ¨Well it´s gonna be a muddy one¨. I get onto my bike and ride up to sign up with my grandpa. When we get to the signup office I fill out the class sheets and the track lady says,
¨That'll be 60 dollars, please¨.
¨Do you take Visa?¨ asks my Grandpa Lee.
¨We sure do!¨ replies the track lady. After we got my wristband that indicates I actually payed we head back to the van to make breakfast and warm up my bike for practice. I quickly eat a bowl of cereal and throw my gear on, start my bike and head to the starting line. The track worker lets my class onto the track for our practice, and due to the rain and fresh tilling it is very soft. about 30 of us head to the first corner wide open, hoping that the person in front of us does not fall. I manage to get through practice only falling 3 or 4 times due to the insane amount of mud, and I only managed to use all 5 of my tear offs. I go wash my bike at my girlfriend's camper and then ride my bike back to my van to put fuel in and then wait for my race. To pass the time I go to my girlfriend´s camper to hang out and talk about the track. As soon as my race began to draw close, I head back to my van to get dressed.
I head to the starting line waiting area, as I am waiting I make small talk with my friend Nick who is racing with me in 250jr class. Once the class ahead of us leaves the starting line, the track worker begins calling our numbers to let us in to pick our gates. I get called second, so I follow Devin Stang in to choose my starting gate. I pick the gate 6 to the right of the dog house, pack it, and roll my bike in, and Nick lines up right next to me on my right. As we are waiting for the race ahead of us to finish, I notice that Devin Stang lined up all the way to the right on the outside. I wondered why he chose that gate, I would later find out why. As the race before us came to an end, the track worker raises the 2 minute board, we start our engines, he counts us off, asking if we our ready with a flick of his wrist, we each answer with a nod of the head, everyone revving their engines, getting amped up for the race. He flips the board around, 30 seconds.
The flagger jogs to the doghouse, everyone revs their bikes to the max, I rev my bike until I almost hit the rev limiter, already in second gear, I wait patiently until the gate drops, my heart beating furiously in my chest. The gate drops, I dump my clutch and grab a handful of throttle, jumping out of the gate and barreling down the start straight, about halfway down the start straight I realize that I'm out front. ¨Could this really be my first holeshot?¨ I think to myself as I grab third gear, not even letting off the throttle. As I come into the first turn, about to get my first hole shot, all of my dreams are crushed as Devin Stang rails around the outside of my on his roached out YZ125 just screaming in the power band. He is a B class rider and I am not surprised that he managed to rip the holeshot right from my hands. I try to keep up with him for the first two laps and we pull away from everyone else, or so I thought.
I hear a bike behind me, over the triple I look over my shoulder and see the one person I did not want to see, Nick Fox, charging all he was worth, just to pass me. I hammered down big time, started guarding insides and scrubbing jumps to try to gain some time, but it was too late, I had slacked off for too long, It was time to really push now. As I rounded the corner before the table top, I could hear Nick's bike roaring up the inside, I railed the outside rut and sent the tabletop in 3rd gear, Nick´s handlebars inches from mine while we flew through the air, side by side. We land, Nick slightly ahead of me, I take the inside, and nicely block pass Nick. I power out of the corner and into the whoops in 3rd gear wide open, my tire misses a whoop about half way through and dips into the trough of the next one, I feel my body weight shift up and forward, I go over the handlebars, and everything goes black.
I open my eyes to the sound of my girlfriend's dad and an EMT asking me how many fingers she was holding up, if I had pain anywhere, and where I was. I answered all their questions no problem, got up and onto my bike, someone held the bike up while I kicked it over, trying to start it. I can't get it running, so we bump start it, and I realize my clutch lever is broken off, and I can not sit down in the corners due to extreme pain in my legs. I arrive at the finish line, and I have one more lap, so I go around again, not wanting a DNF. I finally get off the track and to my van, I sit down and prop my legs up, and put some ice on them.
The next day I was medically diagnosed with a stage 3 concussion and a severe quadricep contusion, along with internal bruising to my knee. I couldn't remember all of what happened before the crash, people who were there filled me in. While at the doctors office, after suffering all these injuries, and being told what all of them were and what they meant by the doctor, all I had to say was,
¨When can I ride again?¨