This year the track seemed to be a lot harder than usual and once we got out there and started practicing, you could really tell it was a different deal this year. Very, very skiddery with quite a few big ruts on the exits of both turns. In practice we seemed to be having a lot of crashes happening in all of the classes, and I could see and fell this and to tell you the truth, I kind of knew I had to think this situation out more this time and take it easy tonight. I mean Ricky Marshall and Dan Gideon had both crashed earlier right in front of me while I was sitting in the staging area, and broke their arms, and maybe a wrist, and then later in the night in the Dash For Cash race, Nicky Cummings, Sam Halbert and Jethro Halbert all crashed very badly together with Nick really getting hurt badly, and both Halberts might have broken arms too. It was one bad crash that I just happened to see the whole thing again and made me very thankful for getting a bad start in my heat race and not qualifying for that Dash.

    But anyway, after the night was said and done, I betcha the ambulance took 8 riders at least to the hospital. Not fun. I ended up finishing in fourth in the 450 class tonight on my J&M framed Bob Lanphere's Beaverton/Renton Motorcycles 450. Then I got the holeshot in the twins main event, which I had won last year here, but after a few laps Schnabel and Mees went by me and I just did not have it in me tonight to fight back too much after all I had seen so far, so I ended up 4th in the twins class on my Latus Harley Davidson 750 too. Anyhow we walked away from that one and now we had a five hour drive overnight to Peoria for the TT Hotshoe National tomorrow morning. Keep Nick Cummings in your prayers as he needs all our thoughts right now.

    Peoria is always one of my favorite places to come too. A great track, great club that promotes the race and just good fun.

    We had scratch heats today instead of transponders for lap timing, which just gave us each one more four lap race on the track. The track was kind of soft here today and spooky too as they had been getting a bunch of rain here lately I guess, which made track conditions today not the best. But the Peoria Mootorcycle club and the AMA did their best to keep it safe for. But once again there were a lot of crashes, mainly over the jump, as the face of the jump had a bunch of wavy braking bumps going up the face of it which made you or your bike get out of shape right before you took flight. I mean this jump here is tricky enough to hit at speed, but throw in some speed bumps on it, and it get's real tricky.

    I ended up getting the holeshot in my scratch heat and went on to win it pretty easily. Now it was heat race time, and I nailed the start just perfect again and got the holeshot. But on lap three or so, I had a huge, huge scare over the jump that just about put me on my noggin'. As I got all out of shape up the jump, and when I took off the jump, my bike was way sideways and pointing staright up in the air. My butt was probable a foot off the seat with both feet way off the pegs and flyinf sideways. I managed to save it, but wow, it deffinately slowed me down over the jump for a lap after that one. But I kept the lead and put my head back down and started hitting it much better after that and came home with a good size win.

    For the final, I knew the start was goiong to be crucial once again, as on the front row it was Schnabel, myself, Mees, Janisch, Carr and Johnson I think. At the flash of the light, I nailed it, and the holeshot was mine. I put in a few great laps, and then on lap four there was a bad crash over the jump behind me, so the red flags come out. So this meant a single file restart would happen. I had been getting great starts all day long, so I knew I could do it again, but then anything can happen when that light goes green in these single file restarts as we all know. But at the flash of the green, I think this was my best start of the day. I mean my bike flap jumped out of there, and she was a screamin' down the straight. I put in a couple of kind of cautious lasp the first two go rounds or so, as I could hear they were right there still, and I did not want to mess up and slip off this narrow groove today and give this one away. But after a couple laps, I was feeling really good and started charging really hard and pushing the limits. Thanks to Debbie at Tucker Rocky, they had put one of the best over sized front brakes on my bike, and it was working like a charm, as I would over charge turn one every lap, and somehow it would get me slowed down enough to still make the turn. It's kind of fun at times playing around with the bike like that and knowing that you are gonna charge even harder next lap to see just how hard you can charge into a certain corner and still make it. It's kind of like a "yee-haa" after every time ya try it and it works. I was just feeling really strong, and this turn one was one spot I knew I was going to be working on before I even got here this weekend. I knew not to look back, but I really didn't need to as I could not hear their bikes anymore, so I knew I had gotten away pretty good. I ended up coming home with a strong win, follwed by Mees and local kid Josh Butler, with Schnabel fourth and Carr 5th I guess. Anyway, today went great and it served as a really strong test for the upcoming Grand National here in August, which I am very looking forward to. So now we have Bull's Gap, Tennessee this coming Saturday night, which is a small clay 1/2 mile. I'll fill ya in after that race too. Untile next time, G'Day! Joe