Powerline Park GNCC

October 14, 2007 - St. Clairsville, Ohio

With the 2007 season winding down, the GNCC series made it's second visit to Ohio this past weekend at the Powerline Park GNCC.  Despite the cool weather, the race was still extremely dusty.  My bike started great but I still didn't get that great of a start.  I was around 8th or so into the woods and knew it would be tough to make it to the front in the dusty conditions.  I tried to ride smart and not make any stupid mistakes but that was a lot easier said than done!  The dust was so hard to see through that a lot of the riders in front of me were making mistakes and going down.  I actually went down twice myself and bent my shifter early on.  I hit neutral a few times but then figured out how to ride with it.  As we neared the end of the first lap I found myself in second place behind Justin Williamson.  He was riding good out front and I was happy to be up so far in the pack after my not so great start.  On the second lap Justin made a mistake which let me inherit the lead.  Unfortunately it was short lived as I made a mistake myself and went down!  That put me back into 4th position behind Justin, my Monster Energy Kawasaki teammate Scott Watkins and Australian rider Chris Hollis.  All of those guys were riding great and I was doing my best to stay near them and be consistent in the dust.

Around the 3rd or 4th lap I made it around Hollis and tried to put my head down and go after Scotty and Justin.  I was around 30 seconds back from Scotty and just tried to close the gap.  With one lap to go I was able to cut it down to a 20 second gap and at one point my pitboard showed I was within 15 seconds but I just couldn't get any closer than that.  With about half a lap to go I made another mistake when I got in some dust from a lapped rider and lost some time.  There was no catching up after that and I had to settle for 3rd which I'm happy with.  As I've said a few times, any time I am able to finish on the podium in such a competitive class, it's hard to be disappointed.   Justin and Scotty rode great all day and they deserve to be up there.