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Team Solitaire - Budd’s Creek 2007

Team Solitaire/Kingdom/FLY Racing Honda Event Update
Budd’s Creek, MD
June 17th, 2007

Every Father’s Day weekend for as long as I can remember has been spent at Budd’s Creek raceway in Southern Maryland. This year would be no exception, as round four of the 2007 AMA Motocross Championship visited this spectacular facility that will play host to this years Motocross of Nations.

Still on the sidelines recovering from a hand injury suffered at Hangtown, Jiri Dostal would be a spectator yet again. Ricky Renner, coming off a career high moto finish one-week prior, was poised to raise the bar yet again. After struggling at Southwick, I was looking for redemption on a facility that has treated me well in the past. Here is a look at the weekend through the lens of my Dragon goggles.

Ricky Renner

Timed Qualification: Ricky sailed through Saturday’s qualifiers with ease, and laid down the 23rd quickest lap in Sunday morning practice. The lap times at Budd’s Creek were tighter than normal, so the start would be extremely important.

Motto One: Ricky had a pretty dismal start in the first moto and cross the finish line on lap one in 33rd position. He rode well and battled hard to make it inside the top 20 by the end of the moto. He had a hard fought battle with Kelly Smith for the final points paying position, and in the end he got the nod.

Moto Two: Ricky’s start was quite a bit better this time, crossing the finish line jump in 20th. He was again in a battle from the beginning, but this time the passing was not so easy. He was all over Ryan Morais for the first half of the race, and despite trying like mad, was unable to get by and seemingly wore himself down trying. He settled into the pace of the riders around him and wasn’t able to climb any higher than 19th by the end of the moto.

Ryan Clark

Timed Qualification: I had a good run on Saturday, but am still having a little difficulty with the new time qualification on Sunday morning and had to settle for 27th fastest time.

Moto One: With the new Budd’s Creek start, there was really no reason for me to run it hard into the first turn. The start is short, probably only two hundred feet, and the inside of the turn is lined up directly with the inside gate. So instead of gunning it in deep and getting pinched, I tried to hesitate off the gate and cut all the way across to the inside behind Carmichael and Stewart. It actually worked well for me, and I came out of the turn just outside the top ten. Unfortunately, after the first few corners I could feel that my rear brake was not working very well. It continued to worsen over the next few laps to the point that I was missing my lines in most corners and was just going outside everywhere. At around halfway I had lost a few positions, but was trying to hold on. In a tight corner I missed the inside rut and a rider snuck under me so I tried to hold it in on him and keep the position. We collided and the impact damaged my front brake caliper. My front wheel locked up completely and I had to retire for the moto.

Moto Two: I tried my same move off the start in moto two, only now about half the field had heard about my first moto move and tried the same thing. I ended up tangling with another rider going into the turn and taking out Kyle Lewis in the process. Our bikes were stuck together, so by the time we took off we were down nearly 30 seconds on the rider in 38th position. I passed Kyle right away on the first lap, but he stuck right on my wheel. In fact, for the whole 30-plus minutes we rode within one or two seconds of each other. He passed me at one point when I made a mistake, but I charged back by on the next lap. When all was said and done, we had clawed our way back to 22nd and 23rd position. I have not had that much fun battling in a while. So even though we didn’t earn any points for our efforts, we had some big smiles in the end.

Summary
Ricky’s moto tally of 20/19 earned him 21st overall on the weekend. My 37/22-moto score earned me 29th on the weekend.

Upcoming Events
We have a break in the schedule next weekend before returning to action on July 1st in Red Bud, Michigan.

Other Notes

It looks like Jiri will not return at Red Bud as hoped, but will definitely be back on track at Unadilla on July15th.

My friend and training partner Destry Abbott attempted his first outdoor national in quite a few years at Budd’s Creek. For those of you who don’t know, Destry is a multi-time AMA Hare and Hound Champion and WORCS race competitor. Although he missed qualification by a few spots, he rode well and will certainly make the cut in the near future. He will try his hand again at Red Bud on July 1st.

Ronnie Renner, Ricky’s older brother, was on hand to show his support at Budd’s Creek. Although Ricky wasn’t blessed with Ronnie’s dancing ability, he certainly picked up the ability to throw some huge whips. Stay tuned for