Louisville, Kentucky

We left the house on Thursday night headed East on I-30 for Kentucky and then on to the familiar old I-40.  Pam wasn't going with us to this race.  She had a Monster Truck show in Little Rock that weekend.  The first stop was in Memphis to pick up Chris.  When we got home from New Mexico, he left early in his van and went home for a day.  After loading Chris and his gear up, it was back on the road.  I drove until around Jackson and Corey took over.  The rest of the crew was asleep.  Corey made it until around 5am and I took the wheel back and ran it on into Louisville and got to the arena about 10am.  We found a spot and got set up in the pits.  It was so cold that Brock's bike wouldn't start.  Max pulled a clean air filter out of it's package and it was frozen.  He tried to warm it up by holding it in front of our propane heater.  It promptly caught on fire.  That freaked him out and he threw it over Corey's head and it burned up.  No wonder they won't allow heaters inside the buildings.  This event was the only one going on and all of the arenacross big boys were on hand.  We gave Colt his bike back and he was back on his schedule.  In addition to Colt's bike, we hauled Megan's bike to Louisville also.  She's our 10 year old National Anthem singer. 

Since it was a two night event, we knew there would be plenty of track time.  Practice went okay, but the luck factor was not there for the team.  None of them made it to the night show Friday night, so they got to watch from the stands.  I pounded the computer keys and reported both nights on the arenacross website.   Saturday was a new day and we started over again.  Chris was the only one from our group to make the night show.  The competition was stiff for everyone and we were happy to get one rider into the night qualifiers.  A bad start in the heat race put Chris in the LCQ.  Around the third lap, Chris was done for the night when he got parked in one of the bowl turns.  He came up to the score table and spotted for me during the mains.  Keith Johnson, 4th in points in the Arenacross class failed to qualify on Friday night.  Saturday night, "Smilin" Teddy Maier didn't qualify either.  Also, a top ten rider.  It was tough.

On Sunday, the boys tried the Open Expert class again.  It's only 100% payback, but there is factory contingency money on the line too.  Brock elected not to ride.  Chris got the best start and was able to notch a third.  Max got a crappy start and moved up to fifth.  Corey was charging, but could only get up to eighth.  The race leader ate it hard over the catapult and the race was stopped early or the results might have been different.  The boys collected some cash and scored some contingency money, so it was a good day. 

We loaded up and headed out of town Sunday night.  This time headed East again.  Destination:  Virginia