My two months of constant activity is finally over and I'm home for two weeks before I head to France. I'm way psyched to be home right now. I'll start where I left off at the NBL Grands at the beginning of September.
The race certainly didn't go like I wanted it to. On the first day of racing was the UCI Olympic point event. I was feeling good and everything was going well. I was leading my semi with Stumpy in second. Coming out of the first turn I lost some major concentration and fell!...all alone! I got up not knowing what the heck happened, but I ruined my chance for the win in the main because I was not focused on what I was doing in the semi.
Friday was the UCI race and Saturday was the race for the NBL title. I was sitting #3 going into this event and Cristian Becerine (#1) and Kyle Bennett (#2) would both have to not make the final for me to win my second title in a row. I made the main, but both Kyle and Cristian did also. Even though this took some pressure off of me I was a little disappointed I would not repeat as champion. The main didn't even go that well for me as I placed 4th. Overall for the year I would end up as #3. Kyle Bennett ended up winning the #1 title and he deserved it for sure.
I came home for 1 day and then headed to New York City for the HP event. WOW. This was the first ever event like this that I've been to and HP treated myself and my girlfriend like royalty. There were many different sections in the building displaying new products and I was sat at the "Extreme Computing" section. So many kick-butt products, an amazing atmosphere and superb people really shows why HP is one of my favorite companies of all time. I was lined up and introduced on-stage with Serena Williams, Shaun White, Petra Nemcova, the Tuttle's from OCC and Davey Hamilton. It was an unbelievable night!!!!
Came home for 2 days and then headed out to Colorado Springs, CO for a sponsorship workshop with all of the Olympic sponsors. With help from my great management team Cheryl and Heather I talked with reps from Coke, Kelloggs, Hilton, Hershey's, McDonald's and Nike just to name a few. I really had a great time at this event and was honored to be chosen to attend. Everyone from all the companies were a treat to talk to and could already see them becoming great friends. I also met so many great USOC people that I will hopefully be seeing much more of. Did I mention I met Carl Lewis? Too many great things to even remember happened on this trip.
I went straight from Colorado up to Vancouver, BC for another UCI race. Pretty uneventful weekend. The race was in the country, hardly anyone there, it was very hard to get psyched up to race here but it all came out all right as I came home with a 2nd.
Again, was home for 2 days and then headed out to Salt Lake City, Utah for another UCI race that was in conjunction with the AST Dew Tour. This is a new venue for us in Salt Lake and the track was a little worse than we had expected it. The track was really short and the jumps weren't long enough at all. The first day holds time-trials, which normally just seeds us into motos for the following day and isn't a huge deal most of the time; this time it was. On Saturday when we were supposed to race, it started raining. Our whole event ended up being canceled and our finishes went off of our time-trials the day before. For me, this was no good as my time-trial was mediocre and I ended up 21st I think. Really bummed for that to happen because it really puts a damper on the world cup title I was going after.
Since so much has happened I didn't want to put all the details in this report because you would all get bored reading it. I am so tired from all these activities but know that I wouldn't trade these past two months for anything! They have been opportunities of a lifetime. I should have time to update more frequently now and I expect some good things to be coming down the pipeline soon.
Thanks so much!
Donny
