Aden de Jager #958 Steel City Report

The weather looked great for the last round of the Lucas Oil Motocross Championship at Steel City. The track was in an emaculate condition and being the last round I was really excited and ready to get out there and ride.

Practice/Qualifier 1: Group B was the last group to head out onto the track. Resulting, many lines had already been formed by the previous riders. The track was tiled quite deep so the ruts had been set pretty deep by the time it was our turn. My first lap I was trying to put down a good time and caught up to another rider but collided with him in a corner which obviously slowed me down quite a bit and I lost most of my momentum and rhythm. My fastest lap was 2.41.8 however on this lap I went off the track as I got cross rutted on a double-double section. I wasn’t too happy with this result as I was in 18th position in Group B.

Practice/Qualifier 2: I watched a few of the guys in other practices prior to going back onto the track to get a good look at their line choices and to see where I could improve and drop off a few seconds. On my last lap I seemed to have had it dialed in hitting all of the lines I wanted and landed a 2.38.2 hoping this would get me into the show. However, to qualify I needed to get a 2.37 flat. I was disapointed as I know dropping off just over one second would take no effort. I was 10th in Group B but still did not qualify meaning I had to swallow up the thought of another LCQ.

LCQ: I got in right next to the starters box to give me some space to drag it up the hill. I got a great jump out of the gate but just slightly got pushed to the outside circling the first corner in about 8th position. In the first ten or so corners there were about 8 ruts in each corner. Because of this, many lines crossed over and caused many collisions and crashes in front of me forcing me to jump out of ruts to avoid going down. As this happened a fair bit, it lead to me losing and gaining positions. For the first lap I got back to about 8th and faught hard to get to the front of the pack nevertheless I couldn’t catch up to the top 2 positions to be able to qualify.

I would like to thank every one whom I have met or talked to once, or on a daily basis and put out a helping hand. With the help of things such as accomodation, parts/bike work, gear, and tracks it has made my experience so much smoother and less stressful due to your help. Your help and support has made me get to the rounds, qualify and get one step closer to my dream. I will be returning to compete in the entire 2010 Supercross series for Wonder Warthog. I look forward to seeing you all and appreciate every bit of help you each have given me.

I would like to give a big thanks to all of my other sponsors who have helped me out tremendously; BDR, Wonder Warthog, Fly Racing, Kwala MX Components, Kali Protectives, Stomp Grip, Hammerhead, Roll-on Throttle, No Toil, Go Pro, Scott, Kevin Hawkins,  The Burgess Family and my Mum and Dad; without their support none of this would have been possible.