Milford race reports

[jstr244]

Two races in the books and I'm starting to believe there might be something more to these orange machines than I thought (or maybe I discredited 2-strokes too quickly). Either way, the 300 delivered once again at a rocky, sandy, fast, & flow-y Milford track. Nice job getting every element you could into one track, workers!

I'll echo what everyone else said, treacherous bridges across I-70 and a cold practice lap made for a few extra nerves come race time. I lined up towards the inside at a position I had saved after my practice lap. The new 300 lit up first 3/4 kick and I must have let the clutch out smooth on the sandy soil of the start perfectly because I found myself alone going through the ravine! Made it to the first corner where I overshot my mark and had to double back around a tree to get onto the trail, luckily no one passed me (sorry group)!

I was feeling good all first lap until I saw Kasey come flying down a hill at me using one of his sneaky lines! Kasey had all the good lines, he hounded me until about a mile from the finish where he pulled out some more track knowledge and passed me in a double lined section that set him up for the next series of corners better than my line. After Kasey got me it took Ryan about half a lap to get up onto my rear wheel and let me know he was there. I was able to pull out a few seconds on him and maintain about a 5 second gap until he stopped to fuel up about halfway through the race.

After Ryan stopped for fuel, I put my head down and kept focused on putting together mistake-free laps to try and close the gap on Kasey. By the last lap, I had inched my way up to his rear wheel before he heard my bike in a corner, after that it was 'game-on!'. Kasey looked over his shoulder and gave that 350 everything he had for the last half of the lap. He had all the sweetest lines dialed and I just couldn't find the speed to get by. At the line we finished a mere 1 second apart.

Great races for everyone out there, and kudos to those who were out in the first race. The course was only 6 miles long and very fast. Despite that I didn't experience any issues with riders on the course being put a lap down. It helps that the speed differential with the split races isn't as great as the combined format races, but still I thought everyone was courteous out there.

See you all in 3 weeks at Walters Ranch!