To start this out, I just want to say how fortunate I am that the injuries I have aren’t worse than they are. The start to this 2024 campaign has been a little on the rough side. All I can say is that this hasn’t been from a lack of preparation on my end or the team’s. I mean sometimes it just has to be chalked up to; this is just part of racing, shit happens. Something I have learned over the years, is you cannot overreact when things are going really well, nor can you overreact when things aren’t going the greatest.
Coming into this season, the riding and training went very well. I had a great off-season, the team and I were making some progress with the bike as well with SSS suspension. We did a lot of testing leading into round 1, and we were all happy with where we were at. Round 1 in Calgary was going about the way I wanted it to go. My speed was where I needed it to be as well, it’s always a good feeling winning the first moto of the season. That being said, early into the second moto, it was probably lap 2 or 3, I knew instantly I had a problem with my rear shock. It was not tracking at all. It was deflecting off every breaking bump and sending the bike side to side really bad. If there’s one thing that I was going to do, it was still go for the win if I could. I was able to close up on Jess, but then going into the back, I hit a big square edge and the bike kicked me completely sideways. I almost crashed super hard. That’s when I had to go into saving mode. I had to not throw the race away completely, be smart and walk out of the first round with as many points as possible. I was happy to come out with a second place, as once I knew the problem with the bike, it could’ve been a DNF. I can’t put the blame on anybody as this was due to a faulty part in the shock, it just sucks that sometimes, this is just part of racing.
Moving onto round 2, I felt great heading into the race as I had stayed out in Lethbridge for the week and was able to get some riding in on some tracks in the area. I didn’t have to deal with the flights home and back out west and deal with the jet lag. After riding the track in practice, I was happy with the track and felt like I could have a great day! I knew the track was going to get rough and nasty. This is what I like the race tracks to get like, and honestly after winning the first moto, I felt very confident I would be even better in the second moto. I got out to a pretty good start, passed into the lead and was really just riding my own race. I was trying to be as smooth as possible, because I knew this track could possibly bite you in the butt pretty dang quick. And well, it did, in a BIG way! Through the section I crashed in, I was pre-jumping the squared edge to stay out of harm’s way, but this time, I buried the bike into the berm a little bit too much on the downhill. This caused my rear wheel to be sucked right into the big square edged hole. As soon as I hit it, it pitched the bike into a massive nose-dive. At this point, I was 4th gear wide open, going over the bars, I decided to hop through the bars to get away from the bike. Well everyone saw what happened from there, I landed in the worst spot possible, right into the next big square edge hole. If I would’ve landed 5 feet further, I most likely would have been alright.
When I hit the ground, my body came to an abrupt stop! I don’t remember much from after the accident. But, I am thankful for everyone that was there to help me! Upon arrival at the hospital, I went through a bunch of tests and scans. I ended up with some broken ribs, a bruised and partially collapsed lung, a bruised heart, a torn rotator cuff, etc. I earned myself a few nights stay in the hospital, where they would keep testing my lung and my heart to make sure I would be okay.
When finally getting out of the hospital, my brain switched instantly to how the heck am I going to try and race the following weekend. I could not make the flight home, as they were worried about the pressure on the plane affecting the heart and lung. So my wife and I cancelled the idea of getting home and planned to head up to Red Deer to see Jim Frederickson at his facility for the rest of the week. He did an amazing job getting as much therapy done on the whole body we possibly could before hopping into his motorhome to head to Pilot mound. I can’t thank Jim and his family enough for looking after me for the week and weekend. I showed up to the race not knowing if I would be able to ride or not. Then the rain came to push the day back! I did 2 laps of practice to get a time in. Those were maybe the 2 hardest laps of my life. As I had no strength in my shoulder to be able to turn the bike. But, I made it around the dang track and I would give it a try to potentially save my championship hopes heading into the break. That’s the only reason I lined up. Had there been no break, there’s no way I was going to put myself through hell like that more than once! The crappy part was that I could still not fly home, so I hopped in the van with Tommy Dallaire and made the drive from Winnipeg to Drummondville. What a dang crappy drive but was happy to do it with a good buddy! Thanks for the memories Tommy!
Now into the break, I have been doing everything I possibly can to get healthy. At this point my lungs and heart are doing pretty well which is a good sign. The torn rotator cuff is a tough injury to come back from mid-season as there’s not much strength there in that shoulder. Now we head to the toughest track of the season. The plan is to try and ride Friday and see how it goes to give my body the absolute most time to heal. Now, not doing any riding and being restricted to limited training heading into this race is fighting a dang uphill battle. But I will never give up, that’s for damn sure!!
See y’all at the races!
