Mud races, love them or hate them, eventually, you’re going to have to race one. Is it ironic that as dirt bike racers, none of us enjoy getting dirty? My wife always makes fun of me because I never use the word “ironic” in the correct sense, so please, feel free to judge me if I am wrong. It’s pretty interesting to watch a mud race, not so much the actual racing part since you can’t seem to tell who is who or who is actually winning. But more the part of watching the 40 different ways every rider is trying to find their way around the track, because let me tell you, not one of us out there did anything the same. I mean, it took me half the race to even start jumping SOME of the jumps. Only later did I find out that everyone was jumping everything and I was the one just rolling around.
None the less, the roll speed was good enough to bring home a fifth. I once again finished behind the ageless wonder, Mike Brown, but we don’t need to talk about that. Staying off the ground was my number one goal of the entire race. It just takes too much wasted time and energy to fall and have to get back up, plus the fact that you ruin your gloves. But if there was ever a good time for a mudder, the weekend before a month off is a perfect time.
We’re pretty sure this is Cade racing his way to a solid 5th place finish at Round 3. Photo by James Lissimore
It’s nice to finally be flying home. I’ve spent almost a month in Canada, and even though I love it here, it will be nice to get home to my bed, Sarah and my dog. Time off just feels like it takes forever and this new long break will be no different. We all just want to keep racing, keep trying to be better each weekend and reach our goals. You just have to take this time to press reset. I think it’s different for each rider as some want a few weekends off while others just want to keep racing, and it might have something to do with how your results have been. In my position, I’m happy that I was able to improve each weekend, not only me but the team and my mechanic. We were all making mistakes to start the year, but after a nice, long sit down, we all realized we weren’t doing our best and stepped our game up. I think once we go east I will thrive a little more as well. I love every round, well every round besides Gopher Dunes since I have always struggled there, but this year we plan to be better. Plus, I have Marshal Weltin to learn from, who is basically a sand specialist after his time overseas.
Getting ready for Gopher is a struggle all on its own. If you’ve ever had the pleasure to ride there, you realize it’s one of a kind. Hitting massive jumps in bottomless sand might look easy when you get to the track Saturday morning, but if you look at the track after the first set of motos you will understand where I am coming from. Just finding somewhere that gets that rough to practice can be tough. But smooth or rough, you just have to find a flow around and make the best of the big bumps; I’ll be heading to Michigan, Ohio, and Ontario to ride some sand tracks in preparation for the rounds. I hope to see you all there!
