Utah National

This past weekend was the first ever Utah national at Miller Motorsports Park. It had been awhile since I have been behind a starting gate, and with only riding 5 times since my injury before the weekend, I was staying optimistic on how things were going to go. I was feeling good on the bike and was looking forward to getting out there and doing battle.

The facility in Utah was amazing, the place was super nice and made things easy on all the riders with everything they had to offer for us. The track was looking good, and it was crazy to hear how much work and effort went into building the mega track. I was looking forward to getting out there and riding.

Practice started out decent for me in the first practice, I thought the track was fun; but struggled a little bit with adapting to the different track conditions and the different surfaces that made up the track. I rode a little tight, but knew what I needed to do in the second practice. The second practice I felt like a rode better and was feeling good on the track, but still didn't throw down a great time as there were about 15 of us within the same range for qualifying and my time happened to be on the lower end of that second. I still made it into the motos qualifying 34th, and was looking forward to the racing.

First moto didn't start out very well as I completely messed up my start and came out 38th. I was able to make a few passes early, and then I kind of settled into a pace for awhile. I started to catch the group in front of me with about 10 minutes to go before I crashed and it took all the wind out of me and took every ounce of energy I had after I got going. I finished out the moto where I was and was able to end up with a 25th place finish.

Going into second moto I ate some food and then starting getting an upset stomach. As I was sitting on the line I felt like I was going to throw up. I was hoping it would just go away once I started riding and that everything would be fine. As the second moto started, I got a good start inside the top 15 and then after 2 laps, I had to pull off and ended up throwing up and called it a moto with some sort of sickness. I was pretty bummed to say the least.

Overall the weekend didn't go as I planned, I know I have some things to work on in between races next week, but I am confident I can make some improvements and put in two solid motos next week to finish out the year.

See everyone at Elsinore,
Austin Burns #416