Jacob911.com

This last weekend I raced the inaugural Prairie Dogs Last Dog Standing event at Glen Helen, and unlike my experience at last man, I physically finished both motos!

It was a pretty cool deal. I got to race a short course grand prix in the morning, then have two other one lap races each about 8 miles long. Going into the day I knew that it would be difficult. Kyle Redmond and I had done some practicing earlier in the week, and basically tried to climb anything that we thought we couldn’t make it up. Most of it we did, but a couple of the hills took a few tries.

The coolest part about this Last Dog Standing was that it paid district 37 desert points. I am currently leading the open class with 14 wins, so this was a chance to make it 15 and be just 5 races away from a perfect season! The morning race started right at 8:30 and Kyle and I basically screwed around the entire time.

I led off the start and pretty much set the pace of the race. I did blow one turn on the truck course, and that set me back a little bit but by the time we got through the Endurocross course I was back in the lead and Kyle and I were side by side.

After the end of the hour race, I was able to open up a little bit of a gap and physically beat Kyle by about 30 seconds. Cory Graffunder came in third and we had a little over an hour to get ready for the first LDS moto.

In LDS 1, I was qualified in first, but physically left the line dead last. I couldn’t get the bike to start, and I just had to hold on and fight through traffic. We were immediately put into a tough rock section, and no joke there was 25 riders stuck in front of me. Luckily my line was better then there’s and I was able to make a big pass putting me into the top 10. The second obstacle, a half mile later, was the water crossing. I was able to clean that and my dad said I was running about 8^th overall.

As the course quickly tightened up, and we got into the tight, nasty canyons, I pretty much just ate dust all day. I was able to make a pass through one of the log sections and physically got up to 7^th, and then had to follow Kendall all of the way into the finish. Luckily for me, he had a bobble on the last obstacle, and I was able to make a pass right in front of the crowd of people –That was pretty cool!!

Between the first and second motos we had a 3 hour break. I got in the motor home right away to try and conserve energy, and about 25 minutes later Justin Morrow joined me. It was pretty funny because he physically blew up his motor and had to carry the bike over the last obstacle. While we cooled off, Ryan Sanders and Justin’s dad actually put a top end in the bike. But probably the funniest part is that Justin went on to finish at 10^th overall, even with the dirty motor rebuild.

For LDS 2 my strategy was a little bit different. We all knew that the obstacles were makeable, and I figured that if I could be the first one to each of them, I could have a better shot of getting through them cleanly. I made it to the rock section in 4^th, but someone behind me took out my rear tire and forced me into a hole. Again I found myself back of the pack, about 10^th this time hoping to desperately make up some ground.

This time they took up right up the face of a hill that I think no one in their right mind would normally climb. I was strait up at one point, and really was nothing I wanted to be stuck on. But as my luck would have it, I got stuck! I jumped a section and when I landed it my footpegs got caught right in a rut. The rut was just enough to keep the back tire off the ground and I lost all of my momentum. By the time I was through the hill, I was back at about 12^th and stuck in the same situation that I was in the morning race.

This time, I was able to make a few more passes. First I got Kendall back in the area they call Buds Creek. It was a series of waterfall drops, and he just got hung up in a rock. After we made it through the rock maze, I got past Colton Udall and Justin Jones up on the ridge. When I hit the last obstacle there was no one in front of me. I jumped the cement tubes, and came into the finish line at 5^th overall, about 4 minutes back of Kyle who won.

In all it was a pretty fun day. I was disappointed that I didn’t get on the podium, but it was still pretty fun to ride on the harder trails all day. I think we were all feeling the same way come the finish line, and that was “when can we do this again!” I ended up second open bike and with the 125% district desert points,that is another 212 points which gets me closer to my goal of a perfect 4000 season.

Thanks again to all of my sponsors, Kawasaki of Simi Valley, Off Road Support, Answer Racing, UFO Plastics, Jett Boots, Scotts, Dunlop, Rekluse, Dirt Digits, Omega, BRP, TBT Racing, Kal-Gard, Pro Moto Billet, Fastway Performance, IMS, FMF, Photos by Grumpy, and Brian Elliot at Allianceoffroad.com

I now plan to take a couple weeks off, and get my body in shape for the X Games Endurocross event. Everything is coming together well, and we are all excited to see how ESPN and the Endurocross team pull this one off!

See you in the Desert,

-Jacob

Jacob911.com