What a weekend!

For those that don't know my son was picked to ride the KTM Junior Supercross Challenge in Dallas this weekend.

KTM does it right. They made my whole family feel welcome and treated all 15 of those kids participating like stars. Lots of free stuff, helmet, goggles, gear and best of all provided and MAINTAINED the bikes.

Donnie Hansen led us down to walk the track about 11:30 or so. He was telling everyone about how Ricky Chad and Bubba go through the whoops. I told him Josh goes through em pretty go himself. He just laughed and said "yeah he's coming around."

First practice was at 2. They ran the whole track in the first practice. Most of the kids were having a hard time through the sand and the whoops so they decided to cut that whole part of the track for the 2nd practice and the main.

Oh yeah! This weekend was the first good riding weekend of the year and I don't mean it just for me, it was the best day. Why? Just because of the weather. Here, 8 degrees below the equatorian line, we don't have clearly defined seasons. There is the season where it rains every day, all the time and the season where it does not rain at all. The no rain season is from late august, early september until late march, early april. This is when the dust rules the trails, when the clay get harder than concrete and the sand makes a thin coat over the *hard* packed clay, making for a very slippery ride, not much traction. Well, saturday was april 2. And the week before it rained every night. It's a good sign when it starts raining at night. It rained and rained... And I said, screw the oil drain plug, I am going to squeeze one more trail from the oil I have.

Luckily the 36 degree day was the previous day, so the 20 intrepid riders had a cool day with some drizzle to help lay the dust.

Simon had the new Husky 510 out & Merv liked his DRZ400 so much that he sold it to his son & fronted with a brand spanker (with .4k’s on the dial at the start)! Obviously getting ready for Cape York, as was Darren having his first time out after giving his collar bone 6 months to heal – it was ok.

We got away at 9.30am & within 5 minutes were in donga. Lots of back roads & tracks to enjoy & all were appropriately careful when crossing busy roads which criss-crossed our ride. Plenty of great scenery to admire while zipping along the byways, especially when we stopped to play on a bit of a hill.

The real excitement started at 12.30 am when the wheel came off the trailer at 100kph & sparks flew out its arsehole (with apologies to Mary – if you haven’t heard the rhyme, ask me around the campfire some time). It seems that the new bearing which I put in 500k’s ago exploded. Let me know if you find a wheel & hub (buggered if we could find it, despite an extensive search). I guarded the load while Tom drove the remaining 20k’s to camp, borrowed Bob’s trailer & came back to rescue me. Of course, it rained while I was passing the time searching. We hid the trailer in the bushes & finally got to bed at 4am!

I've been listening to the Radio today, and it sounds like our longtime favorite [weblink:787] is doing the voiceover for the Jim Beams "Stay True" Competition on Triple M in Australia.

She was announcing a Jim Beam competition where apparently, you can win a car, a bike, and a date with Erin!

Of course, I needed to check that out. The website is a very sexy flash based job, with some pretty sexy babes in it as well as some funny clips.

To win the prizes, you have to buy Jim Beam of course, and enter in a code, but with over 100 prizes a day, its worth taking a better look at.

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