Freestone race report

Freestone race report

The race reports can now also be found as a blog under my profile

This weekend was the Texas National and I believe Justin had big expectations going into this weekend after how well he finished off last weekend at Hangtown. Although the race was in Texas we still had a pretty decent drive because we live as close to Mexico as you can get without actually living in Mexico. I thought we would get there at a pretty decent hour but do to Justin’s dad being late we didn’t get to early of a jump on the road because Justin had to help his dad unload hay so we got to Freestone a bit late.
When we got to the track that morning I was pretty happy to see they were not running amateur day the exact same day as pro practice meaning we could walk the track before 12. We walked the track and then went to the riders meeting to find out that the A.M.A had changed up just about everything as far as practice goes and for once I feel they actually made some pretty big steps forward on improving the program. First witch kind of sucks for us because we haven’t qualified for a national yet but they changed how riders are split up into groups A and B. In short pretty much everyone who has ever qualified for a national is in group A and the rest are put in group B. 2nd the first practice is now not a free practice they do the first 10 minutes free then the rest of the practice is timed which is a good decision in my eyes because with the old way they were doing it meant that if you had a bad 2nd practice it was off to the consi no matter what. The 3rd thing they changed is instead of taking top 12 from both practices they now take the top 25 fastest guys depending on lap times which means it no longer matters what practice you are in as long as you are in the top 25 as far as lap times go. The 4th and final thing they changed was they moved the consi from being on Sunday to being after practice on Saturday. To me I think this is better because with the old way they were doing it the consi guys got no practice instead they only got 2 site laps. Lets hope they don't decide to change things again but with the A.M.A they might
Practice started and for Justin and the first 10 minutes looked good. As soon as the green flag came out he didn’t look so good and after the first practice was not in a qualifying position for the main.

In the 2nd practice he shaved 2 to 3 seconds off his lap times (I’m sorry but I don’t have the lap time paper in front of me so I don’t know the exact amount of time he knocked off) but it was still not good enough to put him in the main so it was off to the consi.



I think one thing that really discouraged him this weekend after practice was when he was looking at the lap charts seeing who qualified because some of the guys that qualified he was right with and even beat when he was doing those pro/am races for the points to get his A.M.A card. I don’t say that to belittle any of the riders who qualified I merely say it because it’s a bit frustrating knowing you can run with those guys but you simply aren’t doing it.
We got the bike ready for the consi and went to line up and pick are gate. Justin picked a pretty good gate that was inside but not way inside. When the gate for the consi dropped Justin got a pretty bad jump but I figured he could tuck to the inside and come out ok. Unfortunately a couple of riders clipped the hay bales on the inside causing a pile up resulting in Justin and another rider who 500guy is helping out to go down.

Justin got up started his bike and did the only thing anyone could ask of him which was for him afterwards to go out and ride his hardest even thought he knew he wouldn’t qualify and that’s exactly what he did.


He came back to 20th and after the consi Justin told me that it was time for him to go back to the drawing board to figure some things out because as it is now the program we are on is not working.