Sorry it’s been so long since I have wrote in, however I think it was worth the wait. We have been working our butts off for the last few weeks in preparing for Indy and it paid off. I arrived in Indy late Wednesday night. It’s only about eight hours so I drove my motor home up and got to park right beside our rig, which was great because it’s like having your home at the race track.

Thursday started with an autograph session for DRAW, which was pretty fun in itself. Any time you get to hang out with other drivers away from the track it gets pretty interesting. Then it was on to the track to set up and get things ready for qualifying on Friday. We got everything set up and I got a good night’s sleep because “The Big Go” was around the corner.

Friday morning in Indy is always the longest day because you only get one qualifying pass and the day seems like it goes on forever. You’re so pumped up that you can’t sleep and you just have to wait and wait and wait to make your first and only pass of the day at Indy. Whether it is a good or bad pass it makes you so anxious to run the next day. In my case it was a decent pass, but there was a lot of things we wanted to change for the next day. We knew the motor was fast, we just had to get the bike set up to run with the motor.

Saturday was not only our next qualifying pass but it was also the first round of the Ringers Glove Bike Battle. This was my first time competing in the shootout so I was psyched. We had Ryan Schnitz first round and we knew we couldn’t take him lightly, or anyone else in the class lightly for that matter. After the last few races and the last few weeks I thought a lot about the way I have been racing. I decided to make a change. I decided to stop thinking about the person in the other lane and start thinking about racing myself. In the past I had been real good on the Tree but I had lost my focus here lately. So I mentally and physically changed some things, and started racing only myself.

First round of the shootout, it paid off. Not only did I have a good reaction time and I won. I finally got into the Six-Second Club. The funny thing is when I came around the corner at the end of the track the guy was holding six fingers up. I just assumed he meant a 7.06, however once I took my helmet off they were like you ran a six-second run. I was so pumped up I didn’t even know what to say. I couldn’t believe it I finally did it, and to top it all off I ended up the No. 1 qualifier. I eventually went on to lose second round of the shootout due to some changes we made on my bike in what we thought was going to make us faster. Initially it made us slower so it cost us the race. We went back to the original setup and on Sunday we ran low e.t. in qualifying again so I knew the bike was back.

I went to bed early and woke up focused Monday morning, race day in Indy. I was prepared and ready to go into battle. First round I had GT Tonglet, even though GT red lit I still had a good light and ran a 7.020. I knew it was going to be a good day. Second round I had Shawn Gann and again I just stayed focused on what I needed to do not on what the other person was doing or what the other person could do. Shawn red lit against me second round. However I again had a good light but my biked slowed a little. We went back and checked the motor and found our problem with one of the valve springs. We went into the semi’s with our heads held high. I had to face off against Antron Brown and I just kept doing exactly what I had done the prior two rounds. My bike slowed again but this time I got the holeshot win. I was in the finals at Indy. Holy crap, I had been given another chance at Indy and this time I was going to win.

I had Angelle in the finals. Angelle is one of my better friends out here in racing. I respect her and she respects me. But I knew she wanted it just as bad as I did. I took some time to myself before I ran and cleared my head. I went up to the line focused on one thing and that was winning. Everything else was gone. I knew the motor in my bike was gone so I knew I had to nail the Tree. I stayed focused. We both staged and she went red. All I could think was “Oh my God I just won the U.S. Nationals.” I don’t remember anything else till I turned the corner at the end of the track and there was the trophy, my trophy and nobody was taking this one away.