Funny back story to this shot. (I didn't even know it was taken.) This is a shot from Goldendale after the Saturday GP. I started in the Amateur class to finish my season. I had a fantastic start right behind Fritz Guenther. The course was a combination of tight switch backs, off camber turns, horsepower hills and drop away jumps, wheel sucking single-track and the occasional pyramid bumps. In other words a beautiful track. After two laps of pressuring Fritz, he dropped behind me for a lap and I thought ok, an hour GP he is going to sit on my wheel and wait for my mistake. After the fourth lap I saw him standing at the finish line with no gear on and cheering me on. Little did I know he had a mechanical problem and dropped out.

I proceed to hammer on with one of my best rides all summer, I had a rhythm and was catching the intermediates, lapping some in my class and even getting with the faster intermediates. In other words, I had this race in the bag.The bike was awesome and I felt stronger each lap. The flagger hollered at me at one point and said "last lap". Cool! Back around for a quick 7:30 minute lap and bag a win. On the last horsepower hill the bike ran real funny and it would only stay running barely with the throttle wide open. Hmmm, fouled plug. I remember seeing a highway sign that said 2700 feet elevation. So I sat there trying to coax the bike to finish one half lap and not DNF. It was not to be, so I quickly decided that down hill was the best way to ride a stalled bike and push it only a mile to the scorers booth. Still an epic ride that I will remember for a long while.

- Dave