After a week of hanging out in Missouri and having a great time, we headed east for the Indy mile. Last year at Indy, I really felt I had a great shot at the win here, only to have my tranny break on the XR750 on the last restart of the main event with three laps to go, which was a huge bummer. So I was really looking forward to getting back here and having some fun on this cushion style mile track. I was a little nervous as to just how my left knee was going to be in racing conditions as I had went and rode my dirt bike a couple of days ago in Missouri to see just what it felt like, and I could tell at the time, that I was going to have to be careful as to not stick it in a hole anymore, as it was very tender to twist or anything like that. I could walk around pretty good during the day once I got it stretched out each morning, but it was very painful while sleeping at night and just tender at certain times.
I knew that somewhere like the Springfield mile would be fine on it as it is a groove style track and you really donot have your foot on the ground very much there, but at Indy with it being a cushion style track usually, I knew that I had to watch it and be careful at times, depending on the track conditions. The first couple of practice sessions at Indy are always just a blast, as you can usually just run the bikes wide open for the entire sessions, and never have to blip the throttle. I mean if you have the confidence and the bike is working good, you never have to roll out of the throttle at all for the entire lap or session. You talk about some good fun! You blast down the straight wide open, around 130 mph, and then you just tell yourself, don't blip the throttle and you can make this turn coming up wide open. Oooh, what a great feeling it is pitching a bike into a corner at about 130 or so and never having to blip the throttle or anything, and then still making the corner! That's the best part, making the corner still, and then getting to do it all over again on this next straight away. hahahaha But ya almost have to talk yourself into it every time you are going down the straight, that yah, I can do that again, at least I think I can! hahahaha
Anyway, in the first session, the track was pretty fluffy and wouldn't ya know it, I caught my left foot in the cushion in turn four on like the third lap and it just wrenched my knee once again. What was I to do? I mean I could ride and race, but having to worry about this knee every corner was just a big pain in the butt. I managed to pull through it, as the track was getting more brushed off after each session, which made it less like to get my knee caught or twisted. I ended up qualifying in the second spot behind Bryan Smith in all three sessions, so I knew I was ready for battle, and ready to get it on.
With this being a big huge race for us, they promoter and the AMA really catered to the Moto GP crowd that was here, which took away from alot of track prep time, which in turn let our really nice cushion track turn into a really narrow groove style track now. Not near as much fun anymore to ride as this was one of those groove tracks that if you slip off the groove, you were gonna lose some serious positions, that was if you saved it from not crashing. All of us riders tried to get them to prep the track better for us all day, but we did not have too much luck, as the top priority of the day you could tell was the Moto GP crown and doing interview after interview with people like Kenny Roberts, Valantino Rossi, Wayne Rainey and many other greats of racing. But at the same time, you would think you would want to put on a better racing show by giving us riders a track where you could pass in the corners too, not just in the draft down the straights. But maybe we were asking too much it seemed, as their track prep sucked today.
I had pole in the second heat race, but in my heat race I was really struggling, as you can tell I was ready to go race wide open up in the cushion like we normally could here, but with the conditions they were giving us now, it was not fun to me at all. Anyway I ended up fifth in my heat race, which would send me to a semi. In my semi, it was a good battle with Shaun Russell and myself, back and forth. I ended up beating him to the line for the win in our semi, which would put me on row three for the final.
I ended up having fast semi for the day, so this gave me first pick of the starting spot on row three. I picked the far outside, because I knew, or at least I thought that everyone would just bottle neck up going into turn one of the start, because they all knew they wanted to get to that narrow little groove first and not slip up in the marbles up high. So at the flash of the light, I jumped out of the hole and had a decent start from the back row, and just as I entered turn one, I went in quite a bit higher than everyone else, but then all of a sudden out of the left corner of my vision, I seen some bikes flipping right towards me from down low in the pack, as the momentum was taking them that way. Same deal as Peoria last week, as I knew I had a hole to fit through between the bikes coming at me and the haybales, or actually airfence here at the mile track. I managed to squeeze through this one very, very luckily, as the last second I seen the bike flipping towards me, it could not have missed the back of my bike by any more than a foot. Right away the red lights come on and the race is stopped. There were riders down everywhere, including Henry Wiles, Brandon Robinson, Shaun Russell and Jethro Halbert. I guess Jethro got thrown over the probably twelve foot tall chain link fence and broke his shoulder blade, and Robinson had his bike stuck in the fence about ten feet up in the air and he broke his pelvis very, very bad in many places I guess. Russell got banged up too and was not able to continue either. So it took about a 1/2 hour at least to get all the riders taken care of and get the track cleaned up. Really all of this happened because a pack of 18 hungry guys were all going for one four foot wide groove.
So for this next total restart, I knew that I wanted to try this same thing and enter higher than anyone else, but at the same time, I knew that I had narrowly escaped that crash, and that I was setting myself up for possible the same thing to happen again. This time I got a decent start again, and just went for it up high. Everyone managed to make it through the first turn in one piece this time, and my outside plan worked as I probably passed 7 people or so in that first turn around the outside. But I knew that once we got the bikes up to speed on the next lap, that it was way to dry to use that high line, as I would have to come down onto the groove for the rest of the race.
It was kind of a follow the leader race, as there was no passing in the corners at all, unless someone screwed up in front of you, so that made for not a whole lot of fun for us riders. Except for Coolbeth, as he went out and ran away with the win. I ended up coming home in the 7th spot and was not real happy with my finish, but at the same time I knew I had walked away and I managed another day on the track with my bum knee.
Until next time, G'Day! Joe