JASON THOMAS - 'THE HARD WAY' - PART 10.
16th Jun 2013
Hey everyone, well, back again with another edition of The Hard Way! Over the last week or so I feel like “the hard way” has just become my only way!!! Ha, life as a pro racer has a lot of ups that’s for sure but I can tell you it has few downs along the way as well. Most people looking in on my situation up until this weekend may have thought that being me is easy – well, as always I’m going to let you guys who are reading get into what goes down in my life.
Since my last blog it’s been pretty normal, no near death stuff taking place, which is nice, ha! Wattsy and I had a DirtWise school in PA where we had a few great days instructing and even got to lay down a few laps during the school. Wattsy has a new 200 now….., one that the wheels actually roll on, and the motor hasn’t been used to demonstrate drowning a bike out in a river. Wattsy has also almost completed his long term experiment. He is trying to get his socks to actually walk off his feet and wash themselves (well it seems that way). Nothing quite like waking up 2 days into 4 days of schooling to the smell of what you could mistake as a dead rat.
These things he wears on his feet are special. Let me paint a picture of them for you – white tennis socks that are now a brownish/yellow color, the big toe is blown out of them due to wear, as well as the heal. Wattsy wears them every school and just hangs them up after a long day of roosting, usually right next to the bed along with his stinky ass under grunds.
Anyway, like I said, it won’t be long until they run off by themselves one night. Or I throw up and throw them out……
So after that it was back to the grind at the track. Josh Strang was in town for a few days and we were able to get some roosting in together. It was nice to have someone to ride with and push the pace a little during the week. On Wednesday my mate Steve came over, as well as Justin Sode, and we had a blast riding some trail and getting some good seat time.
Now the way I manage my week before each GNCC is that I ride Monday through Thursday, something on Friday I spend all day building my race bike (to do it right, it takes that long!). No mechanic for this Pro which makes Friday a long day. In order to run against these factory teams I have to strip every nut and bolt. It’s not just a wash and bullshit spray job, I start with the frame and build the race bike from the ground up. This week was a pretty easy build as the last race wasn’t to hard on it, everything went pretty smooth and the last thing on the list was replacing the clutch. A pretty simple job until you drop one of the roller bearing pins that the plates slide on, down into the bottom of the motor amongst the gear selectors……
By this time it was midnight. I started it at 9am, so it was a bad end to a long day, and the start of what turned out to be a very long weekend. I tried flipping the bike upside down, on its side, and at one point I even tried talking it into spitting it out if I bought it ice cream, ha!
None of the above worked of course so I gave Wattsy a text to let him know the problem, and as expected the reply went something like, “What the f#*% do you want me to do about it?”. This put a smile on my face believe it or not, and this moment is in my memory bank for whenever he’s up shit creek next time and needs a bail out, ha, ha!!!!
Anyhow we talked and decided to take the motor out of the frame and run it down to the local dealer in the morning, I have known Chip down at the shop for a few years and he helped me get the piece out early Saturday am. I was then able to build the bike back up (again) and head out later that afternoon for the race.
This meant I didn’t get chance to walk any of the track but that didn’t matter as about an hour after I arrived the heavens opened up and flooded everything. I spent the night in my van track side and morning soon came around. It was pretty warm and things started drying out fast, conditions were looking epic, and I was excited to go racing. The week leading up to the race I got word that Andrew Delong got hurt and I was disappointed to hear the news. AD is a great kid and deserves to win a championship this year – it’s great for the XC2 class when someone ups the pace like Andrew has this year.
This essentially left the racing to Grant Baylor and myself. I went down in turn one (well, actually I didn’t even make it to turn one!) and everyone was gone by the time I got going. I am back to the old me though on the bike, where i feel totally at one with the bike, and thus passed the whole class in about 6 miles. Now that I’m riding with lots confidence and huge smile I went straight to the lead where I stayed until the luck went against me. My fuel injector got blocked and that was that. The KTM crew were unable to help me out and I was unable to fix the issue myself resulting in a costly DNF.
That’s racing as they say, and I believe I was due some bad luck. Everyone has had a bad one and now I find myself 19 points in the hole for the championship lead, but with the rock races coming up now (my favorite!), and a new pace and spunk that I believe I have reached I’m confident that things will now get exciting. It’s crunch time and I have to make something happen. Grant is going to be tough though, as he’s a great rider and kid, and I’m looking forward the battle – I’m finally ready to throw down! And I hope Delong is back soon so we can all finish the year out strong and healthy, and have the best rider win!
Until next time, believe in yourself and trust everything happens for a reason.
Boom, boom, POW!!!
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