Hello Miller!
Miller Motorsports Park - Tooele, UT
October 20-22, 2006

Finally, the day has come. I fly out to Salt Lake City Utah for the USGPRU final. I'm psyched. Got my suitcase packed, and a box with a new set of Dunlops for the race. I check everything at the counter and wait for my flight.

My flights go well, and I get my luggage and load up my rental car at SLC. It's 2:15pm and I head to the track. 20 mins later I approach the track, or should I say complex, and it's fucking amazing. Huge jumbotron TVs, grandstands, European style track building on the front straight. Just amazing.

I head to our pit lane garage that we rented and Stu and Sam have already arrived and unpacked the bike and gear. The garages, much like what I've seen so far, are awesome. Lights, private bathroom, heat, electricity, TV and more! We chat and get things setup, and later the three of us goto Applebee's for some early dinner. I hit my hotel, the Best Western and got some good rest.

Friday I head to the track early to get thing situated, and figure out gearing, jetting, etc. We head out for the morning sessions and wow, the track is huge, with tons of turns. It's very smooth and lots of runoff, but it's gonna be hard mastering this track. We break for lunch and everyone is loving this track. First session out after lunch, I crash on the second lap. I headed into the 'S' turn a little too hot and couldn't save it and tucked the front. I wasn't able to ride back to the pits as my carb tray and lower were full of dirt. What really sucked was that it was only the second lap, and I had to wait and sit there for 20 mins till the crash truck came to get me.

I missed the next session, but made it out for the last two of the day. Slowly I improved my lap times, but crashing and missing a session surely didn't help. I head out for some dinner and sleep, as Saturday we have 2 practice sessions then qualifying at the end of the day.

Saturday we head out for morning practice and damn it's cold. 40*. After our second session we sit and wait for qualifying at 3:30. It warms up, but it starts getting windy as the afternoon goes on. Qualifying wasn't too bad. It was a little windy, but the track was so big that there wasn't any traffic or anyone holding anyone up. The pole time was damn fast, and I ended up qualifying 20th. Kinda sux as the bike wasn't running the best I thought it should, but whatever...

Sunday arrives and it's the big day. We head out for another set of freezing morning practice sessions. Our race is at 12:30, just before lunch. Everyone preps and we head out for the grid. Everyone lines up and the green flag drops. I get a good start but overshoot T5 and get passed by a couple people. Time to play catchup. I try and keep up and not lost any more spots but it happens. Mike and Scott come around me as I battle it out with Kevin Murray. Kevin and I swap spots a couple times, then Jeremiah come by and start to walk away from us. As the laps wind down, I start reeling in Jeremiah. With only 1 lap left, there's a slight chance I could catch him to the line, but it's not likely. I try my best but can't get quite close enough, and I know Kevin's hot on my heels and I don't wanna make any mistakes. I ensure I ride an error-free lap, and edge out Kevin to take an 18th place finish.

Everyone had an awesome time, and fortunately there were no big crashes, or injuries. This wraps up the USGPRU National Championship series. I finish 17th out of 133 in the Nation. Pretty good for me as this is only my 3rd season on the 125 and some of the other fast guys have been riding years longer than I have. Overall this was a good season. Wish I had done better, and without the crash in the first race, I would have, but no biggie... I still had fun and looking forward to making a run for a top 5 standing next year.