This week was a little rough for me.  I spent so many hours preparing for my Loretta Lynn Area Qualifier that the week just flew by!  Joe was trying to get things dialed in this week as well to try and get a better result than his past few weekends. 

With all the time I had spent at the track this week, we thought it would be good to go out to eat Thursday night before Joe had to get on the plane around midnight to get to Dallas at a decent time.  After dinner I took Joe to the airport about 10pm.  He said that he wasn’t feeling so hot but that he just thought it was because he felt full.  He called me on Friday morning to say that it had gotten worse and that he felt like he had a stomach virus or something that was taking away all his energy.

We flew him out late Thursday so that he could get to Dallas, get to the track and work on his bike and be back at the hotel at a decent hour to eat dinner and relax for Saturday.  It didn’t really work out that way.  When he got to Dallas on Friday, he went straight to the hotel to go to bed.  He woke up just before lunch and headed out to do his work.  He got back to the hotel early evening and went back to bed again before dinner.  I knew he wasn’t feeling so hot by how much he was sleeping…that isn’t Joe at all.  He has trouble sleeping the night before the race because he is thinking of all the things he needs to do on the track.

After the track walk on Saturday he called me to say that the dirt had a lot of moisture in it from the weeks of rain that Dallas had gotten prior to the race.  The soft spots during the day eventually turned to hard pack in the night show which made for a much different track throughout the day. 

Joe had a rough couple of starts and ended up finishing 17th in the heat and 15th in the LCQ.  He called me after the race and told me he was just happy to make it through those laps.  He said that the stomach cramps hadn’t stopped and that he was exhausted.  He said he had seen Doc Bodnar at the Asterisk Rig a couple times that day to see what he could do.  There wasn’t much they could do other than what he was doing…it just had to pass through his system.

These results are not at all what we were hoping for when Joe came back to racing at the end of this season.  It seems like one uphill struggle after another.  It’s frustrating for him to see what his results are after the week long regimen that he goes through to get to the races.  It’s tough not only physically but mentally too.  We both try and stay positive about the whole thing, but it’s hard I have to admit.  I hope that eventually something is going to hook up for Joe and make his life easier to deal with.

By the way, in case you are wondering…the qualifier went awesome at Competitived Edge MX Park.  We had a great turn out of over 600 riders and no serious injuries the whole weekend.   My crew did an awesome job of working their tails off all weekend.  The families that came to race this weekend were an awesome bunch.  They were so fun to work with and we all look forward to seeing them again soon!

Talk to you next week!